BENICIA — Rumor has it that Benicia is the town where word of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill first spilled one night in 1848.
This quaint waterside bedroom community on the Carquinez Strait with a treasured small town, founded a year earlier in 1847, is home to thriving artist district, a popular waterfront downtown and a former arsenal that is now its successful industrial park.
Benicia has a rich history that includes being one of the state’s former capitals with a still-existing capitol building that is open to visitors as the Benicia State Historical Park. One can also learn about the town’s past at the well-maintained Camel Barn Museum that highlights the history of the town and the Benicia Arsenal, which dates back to pre-Civil War days.
The town’s residential and business charms are found on its west side with a vibrant waterfront as well as the Benicia State Recreation Area along Southhampton Bay.
Benicia is home to events that range from Arts Benicia and the Benicia Peddlers Fair to The Holy Ghost Parade and the July 3 Torchlight Parade.
Its industrial side on the grounds of the former arsenal includes the Port of Benicia and the town’s largest employer, the Valero Oil Refinery with its tanks, pipes and stacks that sprawl across a large area alongside Interstate 680.
Benicia, the fourth largest city in Solano County, has an estimated population of 27,916, according to the city’s website. Its population is 72 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic or Latino, 11 percent Asian and 0.5 percent black. There are 135 American Indians. The average median household income is $86,496 as of 2007.
The town could have been the center of California politics when the state in 1853 declared Benicia as its capital, having found problems with its previous choice of Vallejo. Lawmakers took over the Benicia City Hall, with its Doric columns and appearance of a Greek temple.
“So Benicia, the memorable ‘city of the Straits,’ ‘the rival emporium of the Pacific wealth and commerce,’ is to be vested with new dignities . . .” the Feb. 5, 1853, Daily Alta Californian reported.
The state Legislature met again in Benicia in 1854. It voted to make Benicia the permanent state capital. Then lawmakers quickly changed their minds when 100 people coming to the session couldn’t find lodgings and had to sleep in saloons. They moved the capital to Sacramento.
Another historical site is the Benicia Arsenal, built in 1849 as an ordnance supply depot. William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant spent time there prior to going on to Civil War fame. Sherman became an admirer of the town.
“That Benicia has the best natural site for a commercial city, I am satisfied, and had half the money and half the labor since bestowed upon San Francisco been expended at Benicia, we should have at this day a city of palaces along the Carquinez Strait,” he wrote in his memoirs.
Benicia almost had another name when the town’s founder, Robert Semple, in 1847 wanted to call it Francisca after Gen. Mariano Vallejo’s wife. But then Yerba Buena changed its name to San Francisco, similar enough to be confusing.
Semple noted that Francisca’s full name was Francisca Maria Felipa Benicia Carrillo de Vallejo. He took the name “Benicia” for his town.
Benicia was almost economically shattered in the 1960s when the arsenal closed, removing its economic foundation, but judicious re-creation of the arsenal land as a successful industrial park that now contains the Valero refinery saved the town’s economy.
Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ithompsondr.
Benicia at a glance
- City Hall: 250 E. L St. 746-4200
- Website: www.ci.benicia.ca.us
- City manager: Brad Kilger. Reach at 746-4210, [email protected]
- Mayor: Elizabeth Patterson. Elected in 2011, term expires in 2016. Reach at [email protected]
- Councilman: Tom Campbell. Elected in 2011, term expires in 2016. Reach at [email protected]
- Councilman: Mark Hughes. Elected in 2009, term expires in 2018. Reach at [email protected]
- Councilwoman: Christina Strawbridge. Elected in 2011, term expires in 2016. Reach at [email protected]
- Councilman: Alan Schwartzman. Elected in 2009, term expires in 2018. Reach at [email protected]
