City Has Brief Brush with Loftiness
By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 5, 2003
The towering red-brick building, graced by a pair of spectacular white pillars, is a relic that once housed the center of political life in California.
Alas, the old Benicia capitol's brush with greatness proved to be as short-lived as its rivalry with San Francisco.
The attractive building at First and West G streets has served as a sleepy state park since 1958.
In the early 1850s, though, the 30-foot-tall landmark housed the state Legislature, an illustrious role that lasted about a year. Intense political wrangling inspired lawmakers to pack their saddlebags and head upstream to Sacramento, a fast-growing city near the coveted gold mines.
Benicia, meantime, slipped into the archives as a pleasant city that never quite lived up to its own lofty visions.
Dr. Robert Semple, a lanky, 6-foot-8-inch dentist, is widely known as the city's father. He arrived in what was then Mexican Alta California from Kentucky in 1845, and became smitten with the Carquinez Strait.
In 1846, he moved a prisoner of the Bear Flag Revolt, Mexican Gen. Mariano Vallejo, to Sutter's Fort. Semple learned that Vallejo held title to the Benicia area under a Mexican land grant.
Semple made a deal: He persuaded Vallejo to become partners in a plan to create "a great city of the Pacific" along the Carquinez Strait.
Semple agreed to name the city after Vallejo's wife, divide the land into lots for public sale and operate a ferry service.
"His vision was to make this an inland port, a safe port," said Beverly Phelan, of the Benicia Historical Museum at the Camel Barns.
In 1847, Semple and Vallejo, joined by Thomas Larkin, a land tycoon and California's first millionaire, mapped the new city's layout. Semple, cofounder of the state's first newspaper, the Californian, in Monterey, tirelessly promoted his city-to-be by running ads.
But he had bigger things on his mind, namely turning Benicia into the state capital.
By 1850, the fast-growing waterfront town had been named the Solano County seat and the U.S. Army had established the Benicia Arsenal.
The discovery of gold in 1848, meanwhile, had transformed the state from a rugged colonial outpost into a global destination.
Laws needed to be written, houses built, a Legislature erected and filled.
As California prepared to become the nation's 31st state, towns up and down its coast vied for the prestige and financial windfall of housing the Capitol.
San Jose filled the role, temporarily, by playing host to the first Legislative session in December 1849, during the rainiest winter in memory. Streets turned into rivers of mud. Tents collapsed.
The first meeting, called "the Legislature of a thousand drinks," set out to establish codes and laws and, presumably, incite a few historic hangovers.
In 1850, the Capitol relocated to Vallejo, a nice spot along the river and a direct route to the gold mines. But it had a problem: It was not yet a city.
Benicia, nearby, had a lot more to offer: a deep-water port, colleges and professional schools, churches, hotels, restaurants, and an Army presence.
It had a spectacular red-brick City Hall building, with wooden sidewalks to keep lawmakers' boots free of mud.
"The real intention of this building was to house the state Legislature," said Toshiro Komura, a guide at the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park. "It was built to be adequate for those purposes."
Indeed, it includes two stairways — presumably, to keep the Whigs and Democrats from mixing it up in the same narrow path.
In any case, Benicia was briefly overlooked. After a weeklong move to Sacramento, heavy flooding led lawmakers to reverse course and head back to Vallejo.
On Feb. 4, 1853, Gov. John Bigler signed a bill making Benicia "the permanent capital."
No smoking was allowed inside the wood-floored building, for fear of fire. But each lawmaker's desk came with a brass spittoon for chewing tobacco.
In all, 180 bills were signed into law in Benicia until the capital was relocated to Sacramento in 1854.
"They were probably as productive as anyone could be in that time period," Komura said of the 27 senators and 63 assemblymen.
The laws included establishing an asylum for the insane near Stockton; creating an inspection system for flour, with grading from "superfine" to "bad;" and creating a board of prison commissioners to authorize the construction of San Quentin, with a budget of $153,315.
"The first bill passed was a woman's right to suffrage, the right to vote and own property," Ron Rice, a docent for the Camel museum who leads tours of the old capitol. "But they struck the right to vote until 1919."
In January 1854, after being narrowly re-elected, Bigler called for the removal of the capital in Benicia due to the "insecure condition of the public archives."
Benicia protested, offering to put up a new brick building to protect the records, but Bigler did not budge.
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 5, 2003
The towering red-brick building, graced by a pair of spectacular white pillars, is a relic that once housed the center of political life in California.
Alas, the old Benicia capitol's brush with greatness proved to be as short-lived as its rivalry with San Francisco.
The attractive building at First and West G streets has served as a sleepy state park since 1958.
In the early 1850s, though, the 30-foot-tall landmark housed the state Legislature, an illustrious role that lasted about a year. Intense political wrangling inspired lawmakers to pack their saddlebags and head upstream to Sacramento, a fast-growing city near the coveted gold mines.
Benicia, meantime, slipped into the archives as a pleasant city that never quite lived up to its own lofty visions.
Dr. Robert Semple, a lanky, 6-foot-8-inch dentist, is widely known as the city's father. He arrived in what was then Mexican Alta California from Kentucky in 1845, and became smitten with the Carquinez Strait.
In 1846, he moved a prisoner of the Bear Flag Revolt, Mexican Gen. Mariano Vallejo, to Sutter's Fort. Semple learned that Vallejo held title to the Benicia area under a Mexican land grant.
Semple made a deal: He persuaded Vallejo to become partners in a plan to create "a great city of the Pacific" along the Carquinez Strait.
Semple agreed to name the city after Vallejo's wife, divide the land into lots for public sale and operate a ferry service.
"His vision was to make this an inland port, a safe port," said Beverly Phelan, of the Benicia Historical Museum at the Camel Barns.
In 1847, Semple and Vallejo, joined by Thomas Larkin, a land tycoon and California's first millionaire, mapped the new city's layout. Semple, cofounder of the state's first newspaper, the Californian, in Monterey, tirelessly promoted his city-to-be by running ads.
But he had bigger things on his mind, namely turning Benicia into the state capital.
By 1850, the fast-growing waterfront town had been named the Solano County seat and the U.S. Army had established the Benicia Arsenal.
The discovery of gold in 1848, meanwhile, had transformed the state from a rugged colonial outpost into a global destination.
Laws needed to be written, houses built, a Legislature erected and filled.
As California prepared to become the nation's 31st state, towns up and down its coast vied for the prestige and financial windfall of housing the Capitol.
San Jose filled the role, temporarily, by playing host to the first Legislative session in December 1849, during the rainiest winter in memory. Streets turned into rivers of mud. Tents collapsed.
The first meeting, called "the Legislature of a thousand drinks," set out to establish codes and laws and, presumably, incite a few historic hangovers.
In 1850, the Capitol relocated to Vallejo, a nice spot along the river and a direct route to the gold mines. But it had a problem: It was not yet a city.
Benicia, nearby, had a lot more to offer: a deep-water port, colleges and professional schools, churches, hotels, restaurants, and an Army presence.
It had a spectacular red-brick City Hall building, with wooden sidewalks to keep lawmakers' boots free of mud.
"The real intention of this building was to house the state Legislature," said Toshiro Komura, a guide at the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park. "It was built to be adequate for those purposes."
Indeed, it includes two stairways — presumably, to keep the Whigs and Democrats from mixing it up in the same narrow path.
In any case, Benicia was briefly overlooked. After a weeklong move to Sacramento, heavy flooding led lawmakers to reverse course and head back to Vallejo.
On Feb. 4, 1853, Gov. John Bigler signed a bill making Benicia "the permanent capital."
No smoking was allowed inside the wood-floored building, for fear of fire. But each lawmaker's desk came with a brass spittoon for chewing tobacco.
In all, 180 bills were signed into law in Benicia until the capital was relocated to Sacramento in 1854.
"They were probably as productive as anyone could be in that time period," Komura said of the 27 senators and 63 assemblymen.
The laws included establishing an asylum for the insane near Stockton; creating an inspection system for flour, with grading from "superfine" to "bad;" and creating a board of prison commissioners to authorize the construction of San Quentin, with a budget of $153,315.
"The first bill passed was a woman's right to suffrage, the right to vote and own property," Ron Rice, a docent for the Camel museum who leads tours of the old capitol. "But they struck the right to vote until 1919."
In January 1854, after being narrowly re-elected, Bigler called for the removal of the capital in Benicia due to the "insecure condition of the public archives."
Benicia protested, offering to put up a new brick building to protect the records, but Bigler did not budge.
posted by Corey at 7:53 PM
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