DIXON — Lambtown and Dairy City are just two of the nicknames that denote Dixon’s strong agricultural roots.
The town should have been named Dicksonville after pioneer Thomas Dickson who donated 10 acres of his land for a railroad depot, but a mistake on the spelling of the town’s name on a shipment of merchandise in 1872 got the community’s identity changed to the simpler Dixon.
Dixon’s agricultural heritage derives from its located in the Dixon Ridge farming area, which has some of Solano County’s most fertile soil that allows farmers to grow everything from tomatoes to alfalfa, ranchers to run cattle and sheep, and orchardists to grow almonds and walnuts.
The community keeps its farming heritage alive with such events as the annual May Fair, which began in the late 1800s and is the longest continually running agriculture fair in California, and attractions founded more recently such as the Cool Pumpkin Patch corn maze, reputedly the world’s largest.
Solano County has a 548-acre area zoned for agricultural services next to Dixon. This area is to be home to processing plants and other businesses that help the farming economy.
Dixon has become more suburban in recent decades, with subdivisions swelling its population of commuters who travel to Davis and the Sacramento area to work.
The city, which was incorporated in 1878, has 18,315 residents as of the 2010 census, of which 40 percent are Hispanic of any race. Of the non-Hispanic population, 49 percent are white, 2.7 percent black, 3.5 percent Asian, 3.2 percent two or more races and the remainder Pacific Islander and other categories, according to the 2010 census.
The median age of Dixon’s population is 32 years old and its median income in $71,122.
Dixon almost became home to a major horse-racing center, but residents voted that down on the grounds they liked their town the way it was. The city also courted the idea of trying to land a movie studio that would have been built on the south side of town and produce family films, but the studio never came about.
Dixon was born in 1851 when pioneer Elija Silvey founded the town of Silveyville, which was located a few miles from present-day Dixon. He set up a hotel and saloon for mule teams traveling between San Francisco and the gold fields in the Sierra Nevada and put up a red lantern to make certain people could find it.
By 1865, Silveyville had about 150 residents and boasted a store, blacksmith shop and a post office, with Silvey serving as postmaster. But the Central Pacific railroad came through in 1868 several miles away and Silveyville died. A new town sprung up along the railroad tracks, with people moving many of the Silveyville buildings there on rollers.
In a twist of irony, one of the few buildings to survive from Silveyville was a church that was too large to be hauled over the railroad tracks. When a massive fire burned down much of Dixon, the church survived quite literally because it was on the wrong side of the tracks.
Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ithompsondr.
Dixon at a glance
- City Hall: 600 E. A St., 678-7000
- Website: www.ci.dixon.ca.us
- City manager: Jim Lindley. Reach at 678-7000, ext. 101, [email protected].
- Mayor: Jack Batchelor. Elected in 2008, term expires in 2016. Reach at [email protected].
- City Councilman: Steve Bird. Elected in 2012, term expires in 2016. Reach at [email protected].
- City Councilman: Jerry Castanon. Elected 2012, term expires in 2016. Reach at [email protected].
- City Councilman: Ted Hickman. Elected in 2014, term expires in 2018. Reach at [email protected].
- City Councilman: Scott Pederson. Elected in 2014, term expires in 2018. Reach at [email protected].
