HomePrefaceChapter 1: Franciscan World: 1730-1894Chapter 2: Franciscan World to 1894Chapter 3: Our First Church: 1895-1901Chapter 4: Our New Church: 1900-1910Chapter 5: Our Church: 1910-1920Chapter 6: Our Church: 1920-1929ur Church: 1930 to 1939Timeline Biography: Author


Chapter 1 - St. Francis of Assisi Parish in a Larger World: Prehistory to 1894

 



Our First Church, Friary and School

The parish's first Mass was celebrated in the Union Hall at 2001 O Street on January 20, 1895, with Fr. Augustine McClory and Fr. Pius Niermann officiating. Among the pioneer parishioners were John T. O'Connor (an altar boy), Amelia Thieland (later Mrs. James Dunphy), Joe Maloney, and Mabel Hennsey (later Mrs. Ed Hallauer). Mr. Glacklin rang the hand bell outside the hall to announce the beginning of services.* Curiously the hall rented for $2.50 per Sunday, while the chairs cost $14.

Fr. Augustine McClory Fr. Pius Niermann
Fr. Titus Hugger Fr. Pius Niermann

 

*Note: We could use some sleuthing on "Mr. Glacklin." There are no "Glacklins" listed in the Sacramento City Directories from 1895 on. We believe, therefore, that this is a misspelling of the name "Glackin" of which the most noteworthy may be Sacramento BeBill Glackine arts editor Bill Glackin (1917-2002). The question is: Is our 1895 St. Francis of Assisi Parish "hand-bell ringer" a forebear of Bee arts editor Bill Glackin? Glackins are consistently listed in the City Directory, beginning in 1895 with John F. Glackin and his wife, Mary, who was the postmaster in Oak Park. (John was listed as a clerk.) In 1910 Mary Glackin is listed as John's widow and living at 2426 Q Street. In 1903 the City Directory lists two John J. Glackins residing at 1726 17th Street, along with Mrs. Mary L. The younger of the J. J. Glackins (their son?) was a Southern Pacific Company machinist. By 1923 John J. Glackin worked for the City of Sacramento as a machinist, residing at 1819 28th Street; his widowed mother continued to reside at 2426 Q Street.

It is not until 1952 that we find a listing for William N. Glackin, manager of the Lux Theatre residing at 2216-1/2 25th Street. William N. was Bill Glackin's father. He would later manage the California Theatre in Oak Park, and beginning in 1933 the Alhambra Theater.

William C. Glackin first appears in the 1955 City Directory as a Bee reporter, residing at 1841 Oregon Drive. In 1980 Bill Glackin lived with his wife, Sandra M., at 4835 Alturas Way, and was listed as arts editor of the Bee.

Bill Glackin was a graduate of St. Francis elementary school, where he sang in the choir under the direction of Anthony Dorndorf. Later he sang in the St. Francis choir, along with his mother, Anita, under the direction of Dorndorf. When Dorndorf died in 1970, Bill Glackin became interim choir director.

The question for our readers is: Does anyone have any more information on the Glackin family from 1895 to Bill's death in 2002?

On the newly purchased property at 26th and K streets, there was a small house with a kitchen. During the week, Masses were held there, as were Confessions and Baptisms. Then on Sundays the congregation would gather again at the Union Hall.

Our First Church and Friary
Our First Church and Friary

Groundbreaking for the first church, a wooden structure at 26th and K, took place on February 7, 1895, and the first Mass, blessed by Bishop Grace, was celebrated on Palm Sunday, April 7, 1895. The cost was $14,000 for the church and friary, built by Hook and Son. The church measured 36 by 100 feet; the friary was a three-story house with a flood basement. Brother Adrian Wewer designed the new church, and Fr. Augustine McClory served as first pastor from 1895-1896.

 

Bishop Patrick ManogueBishop Patrick Manogue offered the bell from St. Rose of Lima Church to our new parish. (St. Rose of Lima Church had been demolished in 1889 upon completion of the cathedral). The bell was cast in Meneely's Foundry in West Troy, New York, in 1859 and shipped "around the Horn" to Sacramento. Weighing 2,079 pounds and measuring 46 feet in diameter, the bell was too large for St. Francis' belfry and was placed in a raised steel tower near the church. Bishop Manogue died on February 27, 1895, and the bell tolled for the first time at this new location at his funeral on March 5, 1895.

 

Rev. Bishop Grace
Rev Thomas Grace Arriving for Ordination accompanied by Fr. Godfrey Hoelters, O.F.M.

When Bishop Manogue died, Rev. Father Thomas Grace was appointed bishop and formally consecrated on June 16, 1896.

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Our First Church (1895)

On Sunday April 28, 1895, Rev. Thomas Grace formally blessed St. Francis of Assisi Church in an elaborate celebration. An outdoor platform was required to accommodate the immense crowd that gathered in hear Bishop Grace and the German Franciscans, Fr. Maximilian Neumann of Saint Boniface Church and Fr. Leo Brunner of St. Anthony's Church, both from San Francisco. Fr. Joseph Riordan, president of the Jesuit College of Santa Clara, also spoke. Many Catholic organizations attended, and a special choir provided the music for the occasion.

Fr. Riordan delivered his homily in English, and Fr. Brunner translated it into German. Then Bishop Grace celebrated Mass and officially dedicated the new St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church. On May 24, 1895, both the church and the friary were blessed by Bishop Grace. On June 16, 1895, the First Holy Communion was celebrated for children of the parish.

German Catholic culture emphasized the intellectual aspects of Catholicism. German Masses were stately and richly liturgical in spirit, and education of the young was a priority. A school, therefore, was an integral part of a German Catholic church site. Although St. Francis of Assisi was expressly not a national parish, a significant number of its pioneer parishioners were German Catholic.

Thus, in August 1895, work was begun on a two-room school which opened on November 5 with thirty-seven young students. The school faced 26th Street at the site of the present friary. The Sisters of Mercy from St. Joseph's Academy at 8th and G Streets were the first teachers, staying on for six years.

Sacramento County and Its ResourcesAccording to the Catholic Herald, "Malaria was rampant in Sacramento in the '90s and Father Augustine [McClory] began to feel its enervating influence. . ."1 In August of 1896 he left Sacramento, after having laid the foundations of the parish." Fr. McClory was replaced by Fr. Titus Hugger who served as pastor from 1896-1900.

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Diocese of Sacramento (1896)

St. PatrickAt the time of Bishop Grace's installation in 1896, the Sacramento diocese encompassed 92,611 square miles—54,449 in California and 38,162 in Nevada. The Catholic population of the diocese was 25,000 souls in thirty parishes and forty-seven missions. In Sacramento, ten Christian Brothers enrolled 325 boys at their St. Patrick School on 12th and K streets. The Christian Brothers School had opened in 1876, thirteen years before the cathedral.

 

St. Joseph AcademyAt St. Joseph Convent and Academy, twenty-eight Sisters of Mercy enrolled a total of 220 students, twenty of them boarders. The Sisters of Mercy had occupied the site since opening their convent there in 1861. The St. Joseph site is now a Sacramento County jury parking lot.

At. St. Francis of Assisi Parish, the two-room elementary school ultimately expanded to three stories and twelve rooms, including a library, a science laboratory, and a gym. There were six other Catholic schools in the diocese—in Eureka, Grass Valley, Red Bluff, Reno, Virginia City, and Woodland. In addition, there were two orphanages in the diocese housing 270 orphans. In 1896 there were 1,790 young people under Catholic care in the Diocese of Sacramento.

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Public Education

From the earliest years of settlement, Sacramentans saw to the education of their children. Between 1854 and 1893, the city founded thirteen grammar and elementary schools, three of them in St. Francis Parish—Fremont, in 1881, at 24th and N Streets; Marshall, in 1881, at 27th and G Streets; and Sutter, in 1889, at 21st and L Streets.

Sacramento High SchoolThe first high school, Sacramento High School, opened with 21 students on September 1, 1856, in a room of an old building on M Street. After three moves, the first high school building was erected in 1887 on the corner of 9th and M streets. Along with the standard curriculum, pupils studied astronomy, bookkeeping, Latin, French and Spanish."2 It remained Sacramento's sole public high school until C. K. McClatchy High School opened in 1937.

 

 

 

Free LibrarySacramento also supported a Free Library on I Street between 7th and 8th streets, a Protestant Orphan Asylum on the block K to L and 18th to 19th streets, and a Foundling Home on the southwest corner of 9th and X streets.

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Catholic Institutions: Schools, Service Organizations, Hospital, and Outlying Churches

Sacramento Catholics were quick to educate their children. The Sisters of Mercy opened St. Joseph Academy at 8th and G in 1861, after the land they had purchased at 10th and M in 1858 was bought by the state for the capitol building. In 1876, the Christian Brothers opened St. Patrick Institute at 12th and K streets. They remained at this site until 1923, when Weinstock, Lubin and Company bought the land to expand their department store.

Early Catholic fraternal and service organizations included: the Ancient Order of the Hibernians (established in the 1870s); the Young Men's Institute (begun in the 1880s with their large annual celebration on Washington's Birthday); and the Catholic Ladies' Relief Society (which opened a chapter in Sacramento in 1888).

Sisters' Hospital
Sisters' Hospital

First arriving in San Francisco in 1854, five sisters of Mercy made their way to Sacramento on October 2, 1857, "to begin their service to the people in the city."3 In 1895, in what would become one of Sacramento's most enduring Catholic service organizations, the Sisters of Mercy took over operation of Ridge Home at 22nd and R streets.

The Ridge Home buildings had been donated to the city by Margaret Crocker and operated as a hospital and sanitarium by Dr. G. L. Simmons. But this venture proved a financial disaster for Simmons, and he turned to the Sisters of Mercy to take over the facility, which they did with plans to build a new modern hospital. In 1896 the cornerstone for the new building was laid, and Mater Misericordiae Hospital opened on May 9, 1897, with a training school for nurses. The Sisters' hospital remained at this site until the new Mercy Hospital opened at 40th and J in 1925.

St. John the Baptist ChurchEarly Catholic churches in the greater Sacramento region included St. John the Baptist in Folsom, founded in 1856. St. Boniface in Nicolaus, a mission church founded to serve German-speaking Catholics, was established in 1869.

 

St. Boniface, NicolausSt. Boniface in Nicolaus, a mission church founded to serve German-speaking Catholics, was established in 1869.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Mary of the AssumptionImmaculate Conception in Marysville was established in 1871, also to serve Germans, and St. Mary of the Assumption was established in Rocklin in 1883.

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Joseph's , ClarksburgSt. Joseph's in Clarksburg was founded in 1893 to serve Portuguese settlers. Fr. Guilherme S. Gloria celebrated the first Mass at St. Joseph's; he was followed as pastor by Fr. Seraphim Soares, a brilliant scholar who served the parish until 1899.

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1893

A number of events took place in 1893 that would have an impact on Sacramentans and St. Francis of Assisi parishioners: 1) Sacramentans adopted a new city charter; 2) a Federal Debris Commission was appointed to oversee deepening and clearing of the Sacramento River channel; 3) in Central America, the French ended their efforts to build a Panama Canal; 4) in Honolulu, Hawaii, merchants and missionaries overthrew the monarchy, setting the stage for a de facto takeover of the islands' economic and political life; and 5) the nation experienced the economic Crash of 1893. Of these, the economic collapse had the most immediate impact on Sacramentans.

 

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1893: The CrashThe War of Wealth

Throughout the nineteenth century, the United States economy had experienced periodic crashes, panics, and depressions. The Panic of 1819 was caused, in part, by over-expansion following the War of 1812-1815. The Crash of 1837 was caused in part, by over speculation and uncertainty regarding President Andrew Jackson's fiscal policies. The Panic of 1873 was caused by railroad over-expansion following the Civil War and an outbreak of equine influenza that shut down urban transportation systems. The Panic of 1893 was partly caused by railroad over-building and weak financing. The crash of 1893, however, was the worst financial disaster in United States history up to that time—worse, many historians believe, then the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As a result of the 1893 crash, the Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages in 1894, but refused to lower rents in their company town in Illinois. This led to the first nationwide strike in American history: American Railway Union workers, led by Eugene V. Debs, went out on strike against the Pullman Company and then extended the boycott via other railroad workers who refused to move any train pulling a Pullman car.

Sacramento witnessed the worst labor violence in its history when, in June 1894, Southern Pacific workers here went on strike. Not only did the workers refuse to move trains, they also took over the railroad shops, yards, and stations. City officials were reluctant to arrest citizen strikers. When the National Guard was called in on July 4, they, too, were ineffective. Finally Marines and U.S. Army troops from San Francisco's Presidio and other military posts took control of Southern Pacific property on July 11.

In retaliation, striking workers derailed a train on Yolo trestle, killing four soldiers and the engineer, Sam Clark. Bishop Manogue was distressed to learn the strikers had used the steeple of the cathedral to signal the departure of the train, but he nonetheless pleaded with Southern Pacific officials to reinstate some of the striking workers.
Yolo County Derailment (1894)
Yolo County Derailment (1894)

The Crash of 1893 and the 1894 Pullman strike illustrate the central role of railroads in nineteenth-century American life and the singular importance of the Central Pacific/Southern Pacific in California and Sacramento History.



 

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Railroads: The Sacramento Valley Railroad

Sacramento Valley RailroadRailroads were the single most important economic, political, and social force in late nineteenth century America. And sacramento was in the vanguard: the Sacramento Valley Railroad, which ran between Sacramento and Folsom—the first commercial railroad west of the Mississippi—was completed in 1856.

With the arrival of the railroad, Folsom became so populous that the second Catholic church in the Sacramento region, St. John the Baptist, was established there in 1856. Stimulated by the 1859 Comstock silver strike in Nevada, Folsom became a thriving transshipment point for silver coming from Nevada by wagons over the Sierra. Between 1860 and 1861, Folsom was also the terminus of the Pony Express, which transferred mail to the Sacramento Valley Railroad for passage to Sacramento, twenty-two miles west.

Sacramento Valley Railroad promoters, headed by Charles Lincoln Wilson, envisioned it as the western leg of a transcontinental railroad. In their plans, railroad construction would proceed north from Folsom, skirting the foothills for 20 miles to Marysville. Following completion of the Sacramento to Folsom leg, the promoters brought Theodore Judah west from New York to survey the Marysville line and a feasible route over the Sierra.

For this enterprise, a new corporate entity, the California Central Railroad, was created, and by early 1861, rails reached from Folsom to Lincoln (a town site laid out by Theodore Judah in 1859 named in honor of Charles Lincoln Wilson). By 1862, the Sacramento, Placer, and Nevada Railroad linked Folsom to Auburn.

The possibility of a transcontinental railroad was greatly advanced by events taking place in the 1840s—the settlement of the Oregon boundary in 1846, huge territorial acquisitions with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican-American War, and the discovery of gold in California in 1848.

In 1853, Congress authorized Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to conduct surveys for a rail route to the Pacific. Four major surveys were completed between 1853 and 1855:

  • The Northern Pacific survey between the 47th and 49th parallels, from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound

  • The Central Pacific survey between the 37th and 39th parallels from St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco

  • A Southern Pacific survey along the 35th parallel from Oklahoma to Los Angeles

  • A southernmost survey across Texas to San Diego
Map - Gadsden Purchase
Map - Gadsden Purchase

One of the most obvious routes would have been from New Orleans, Louisiana (at sea level), to San Diego (at sea level) or Los Angeles, California, whose port city of San Pedro is at sea level. In 1853 Congress authorized the Gadsden Purchase, an area in Mexico south of the Gila River providing easy gradients for railroad construction. But this rail line would not be built for some years.

The Civil War (1861-1865) at first curtailed railroad construction, but soon the federal government became the principal financier of the transcontinental route. Many Northerns saw both the Mexican-American War and the Gadsden Purchase as elements of a Southern conspiracy to expand slavery. Americans as varied as Henry David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, and John Quincy Adams opposed the Mexican War. There was reason to be suspicious: Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, a Mississippian, had advanced the Gadsden Purchase, which was negotiated by James Gadsden, a South Carolina railroad promoter and speculator.

Gadseden Purchase Plaque

Gadsden Purchase Plaque

"The Gila River north of this site marked the International border of the U.S. and Mexico from 1845-1854. James Gadsden negotiated to purchase 38,000 square miles of 'wild country' for $15 million in gold. Amended to $10 million for 29,440 square miles, the Gadsden Purchase maintained southern railroad and wagon routes but preserved Mexico's link to Baja, California. Today the Gadsden Purchase comprises 24 percent of Arizona's total land area.

 

 

 

 

Donner Pass 1870sAs sectional divisions over the expansion of slavery increased, no bill to fund a Pacific railroad could pass Congress—Northerners blocked the authorization of a southern route, Southerns block the authorization of a northern route. With the secession of southern states in 1861, following Lincoln's inauguration, Congress passed, and Lincoln signed, the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. (There would be another more generous Pacific Railroad Act in 1864.) The Central, Pacific rail route, over some of the most challenging and inhospitable Sierra mountain terrain, was chosen so that the Confederate states, should they win the Civil War, would never benefit. Thus, Donner Pass, at 7,085 feet above sea level, became the transcontinental rail route over the Sierra.

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Railroads: The Central Pacific Railroad

In May 1863, Sacramento became the western terminus of the transcontinental railroad, with the Central Pacific building east from Sacramento over the Sierra, and the Union Pacific building west from Omaha, Nebraska. The two lines were joined at Promontory Point, Utah, in May 1869.

The financing and construction of the transcontinental railroad was a war effort—in modern parlance, a Department of Defense operation—a military-industrial complex far in advance of President Eisenhower's 1961 "Farewell Address" warning. Moreover, it was carried out with the fraud, chicanery, bribery, and swindling characteristic of an era Mark Twain would in 1873 label "The Gilded Age."

For the Big Four founders of the Central Pacific Railroad (i.e. Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker), the transcontinental railroad was only the first step in controlling virtually all transportation in California. They also extended their reach into the adjacent states of Oregon and Arizona, then across the Pacific, becoming the major rail transportation system in the western United States. Ultimately, they also controlled steamboat traffic on the lower Mississippi River and steamship lines from New Orleans to New York City.

To secure continued control of freight and passengers, which had to be transshipped to the Sacramento River for passage to the San Francisco Bay, the Central Pacific purchased the California Steam Navigation Company in 1869. In 1874 they organized their own trans-Pacific shipping company—the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company. In 1893, the Southern Pacific took control of their rival, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.
Southern Pacific Bay City Ferry
Southern Pacific Bay City Ferry

In the late 1860s, the Big Four also gained control of San Francisco Bay ferry service. In time, they came to operate the world's largest ferry fleet. They also purchased nearly every bay side lot in Oakland, where in 1868 they began building the Long Wharf, which, in November 1869, became the western terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad. By 1871, the Central Pacific was shipping fully-loaded freight cars across the bay from Oakland. In 1873, the Central Pacific's corporate offices and the Big Four themselves vacated Sacramento for San Francisco.
Southern Pacific Water Lines
Southern Pacific Water Lines
(2007)

As early as 1867, the Big Four had purchased the California and Oregon Railroad, which ultimately connected California to Portland, Oregon. But the Big Four's biggest coup was in extending their lines south and east. In 1868, they purchased the Southern Pacific Railroad, which, in the mid-1870s, they extended to Bakersfield and Los Angeles. Then they began building eastward. In 1883, Southern Pacific rails were joined to the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio rails at the Pecos River, forming the second transcontinental railroad. Called the "Sunset Route," this line reached New Orleans, thus completing the railroad envisioned 30 years earlier with the Gadsden Purchase.

From New Orleans, the Central Pacific purchased the Morgan Steamship Company in 1882 and ran two routes to New York City, where they owned substantial docking and warehousing facilities. The Southern Pacific also operated extensive steamboat lines on the Mississipi River.

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Railroads: the Southern Pacific Company

In 1885, the Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific were combined under a central holding company, the Southern Pacific Company. The new company continued to influence life in Sacramento and the United States into the twenty-first century. In 1886, the Southern Pacific won a landmark Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, wherein the court ruled that under the 14th Amendment a "corporation" was a "person." This decision sharply curtailed federal regulation of corporations and remains a bedrock premise of corporate advocates. In 1898, Sunset magazine was founded as a promotional instrument of the Southern Pacific Company. Sprint Nextel, which had grown out of the Southern Pacific Communications Company—where SPRINT had long been an acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Information NeTwork—became the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the U.S., behind A.T.&T. (Cingular) and Verizon.
Southern Pacific Bay City Ferry
Railway General Time Convention (1883)

Moreover, when what is generally referred to as Standard Time was adopted in 1883, it had its origins in "railroad time." This division of the United States and Canada into time zones was essential to railroad safety and efficiency. With trains running in every direction across the continent and across the Canadian border, railroad companies could not rely on "local time" estimates for when a train "might" arrive or pass a certain point.

China, with an east-west dimension of about 3,200 miles, has only one time zone. In reality, the country spans more than four international time zones. The United States, with an east-west dimension along the 38th parallel of about 3,200 miles, has four time zones.

The Southern Pacific Company may have been one of the most overt monopolies in the history of capitalism. Thoroughout the United States, the values and customs of the Gilded Age prevailed. Other states had a variety of special corporate interests—liquor, railroads, coal, steel, milling, etc.—that could be played off against one another.
C. P. Huntington as Octopus, San Francisco
C.P. Huntington as Octopus,
San Francisco

But in California, there was only one orporate monopoly—the Southern Pacific, which had the capacity to control the minutest aspects of political and economic life—down to the editor of the smallest weekly. Few were the political candidates who could run openly against the interests of the Southern Pacific. Should anyone incur the wrath of Southern Pacific, their careers, their livelihoods, the well-being of their families, their very life and existence as aspiring middle-class citizens could be ruined.

Thus, the Southern Pacific controlled town councils, mayors, and newspapers, and held in thrall the economic well-being of virtually everyone in the state—be they farmer, businessman, or mechanic. Not least of all, the Southern Pacific controlled the California State Legislature. In turn, this meant that they controlled California's United States Senators, since prior to the adoption of the XVII Amendment in 1913, senators were elected by state legislatures.

For example, in 1873, Central Pacific officials demanded representation on the Sacramento city board of trustees in exchange for keeping Central Pacific shops in the city. This was formally denied, but nonetheless, pretty much became the de facto reality. In early 1875, Sacramento officials were summoned to Central Pacific headquarters in San Francisco, where railroad officials proposed that Sacramento give the railroad the old waterworks property at Front and I streets. The editors of the Sacramento Union vociferously protested this land grab, whereupon Central Pacific officials began dropping hints that they might move the company's shops. A meeting was hastily convened at Turner Hall, attended by nearly 600 people in fear of losing their livelihoods. Railroad officials assured the crowd that they would not move the rail yards, but demanded that, in local elections, no one be nominated who was hostile to the railroad. The Turner Hall assemblage agreed to these demands.

The Sacramento Union, however, continued to protest. By the end of February 1875, the Union was purchased by the Sacramento Record, a Central Pacific Railroad-controlled newspaper. The new Record-Union became an ardent advocate of the Central Pacific.

The Central Pacific could well be imperious. The Sacramento shops were the largest industrial complex west of Chicago—manufacturing rolling stock, locomotives, marine steam engines, sleeping and dining cars, San Francisco cable cars, furniture, cabinetry, silver service for the dining cars, and much more.
Central Pacific Hospital
Central Pacific Hospital

In 1869, the company built a hospital on 7th street, between F and G streets, to care for the needs of its many employees. It was the first such company hospital in the United States. In 1882, the hospital's chief surgeon, Dr. Thomas Huntington, opened "the first antiseptic operating room on the West Coast."4

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Railroads: A. J. Stevens and the Sacramento Shops

In manufacturing their vast array of products, the Sacramento shops attracted hundreds of unskilled and exceptionally skilled workers. Foremost among these was Andrew Jackson Stevens (1833-1888), who joined the Central Pacific in Sacramento in 1869, as general master mechanic. Realizing Central Pacific's need for locomotives, especially those designed for long hauls, unstable track, and steep grades of the trans-Sierra West, Stevens soon turned the maintenance shops to manufacturing locomotives and marine engines. He also designed and built ferries for Southern Pacific's Bay Area traffic. One commentator wrote, "To Stevens more than to any other man, Sacramento owes the existence of the great and growing railroad shops within her limits."5

Stevens was an experimenter who shared his innovations, publishing diagrams in trade journals. Having begun his career as an un-schooled machinist, Stevens honored and respected the workingmen in his shops. He did not permit work on Sundays; he did not permit blacklisting; and in difficult economic times, he encouraged management to cut workers' hours rather than their pay.

C. P. Huntington as Octopus, San Francisco
A. J. Stevens' Statue in César Chávez Park with Cal/EPA Building in Background (1991)

When A. J. Stevens died in 1888, he was mourned by more than 2,000 people who marched in Sacramento's streets. Southern Pacific shop workers raised the money to erect a commemorative statue that still stands in today's César Chávez Park. A speaker at the ceremony stated that, "for the first time in the history of the world the people of a city are gathered together for the purpose of witnessing the unveiling, by mechanics, of the statue of a mechanic." In 1888, the Pullman strike of 1894 was less than six years over the horizon.

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Calls for Reform

In national, state, and local politics, the early years of St. Francis Parish saw the growth of the Progressive movement, wherein middle-class reformers sought greater government efficiency, regulation of large corporations, and reforms in working conditions and social services. On the national level, the Progressive movement was spurred by the work of journalists known as "muckrakers," most notably Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives (1890) exposed living conditions in New York City's tenements, and Ida Tarbell's 1902 exposé of Standard Oil in McClure's magazine. In 1904, Sacramento's Lincoln Steffens published The Shame of the Cities, advocating urban political reform. In 1906, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposed working conditions in Chicago's meat packing industry. Inspired by the Mussel Slough tragedy of 1880, Frank Norris' novel The Octopus: A California Story (1901) attacked the Southern Pacific.

 

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1893: A New City Charter
Hotel Land
Hotel Land - William Land Insert

In advance of national Progressive reforms, Sacramento adopted a new charter in 1893 wherein the city was divided into nine wards, with each ward electing its own city council member (trustee) and a representative to the board of education. The mayor ran the city like the executive of a corporation. Mayor William Land (1898-1899) and George Clark (1900-1903), a local mortician, fought successful battles to end illegal gambling in Sacramento's poolrooms.

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1893: Hawaii, U.S. Pacific Overseas Expansion . . . and Japan

American Empire/Eagle Cartoon 1898
American Empire/Eagle Cartoon
1898

In the early years of St. Francis of Assisi Parish, the United States was undertaking its first steps toward overseas expansion. In 1893, American merchants and missionaries overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy. In 1898, the United States precipitated a war with Spain, ostensibly to "free" Cuba, but the first battle of the war took place in Manila Bay, Philippines, on May 1. With the swift conclusion of this "splendid little war," the U.S. annexed Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and in a separate process, officially annexed Hawaii.

In 1899, Filipino nationals, believing the promises made to them by Americans a year earlier, continued their struggle for independence. They were branded "insurrectionists" and suppressed. "We shoot them like shooting dogs," a Sacramento soldier wrote in a letter home.6

By 1900, the United States had extensive possessions in the Pacific. In 1867, Midway Island had become the first off-shore island annexed by the United States, in the same year Alaska was purchased from Russia. The United States took control of Guam island in 1898 and Wake Island in 1899. In 1900 it took possession of American Samoa.

The Philippine Islands were viewed by many expansionists as a stepping stone to the markets of the Asian mainland—an offshore warehousing and staging area for commercial incursions. Given the technology of the day—coal-burning steam engines—the islands provided convenient refueling stations. Coal was mined in such distant regions as West Virginia and then transported by rail and sea and bunkered on these remote islands, which served as coaling stations.

Japanese Advancing on Weihaiwei (1895)
Japanese Advancing on Weihaiwei (1895)

In these same years, Japan was also beginning its overseas expansion by initiating the first sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895. Japan decisively defeated China, demonstrating how successfully it had modernized and setting the stage for the 1911 revolutions in China. Asa result of this defeat, China was forced to concede Taiwan and Korea to Japan.

In Sacramento, 700 Japanese celebrated the Japanese victory in East Park—which became McKinley Park in 1901. In 1895, the Japanese quarter of Sacramento, also known as Japantown, stretched from Second to Fifth streets and from L to O streets. In this district there were more than 200 Japanese-owned businesses.

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1894: Agriculture

Sacramento County and Its ResourcesIn 1894, the year St. Francis of Assisi Parish was established, the Sacramento Bee published "Sacramento County and its Resources: A souvenir of the Bee", which boosted Sacramento versus Southern California as a haven for citrus growers. According to the Bee, Sacramento County had 20,000 acres planted in fruit orchards, 10,000 acres in vineyards, 75,000 acres in vegetables, and 2,000 acres in hops. The Bee boasted that 75 percent of all fruit shipped east from California was grown in the Sacramento Valley.

In fact, fruit had long been a main feature of Sacramento Valley agriculture. As early as 1870, the Central Pacific railroad built an ice-cooled freight car at its Sacramento shops to ship fruit across the country.

In 1833, Judge Lorenzo Sawyer handed down his epoch-changing decision in the case of Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Mine in which he granted a perpetual injunction against the North Bloomfield Mine and all other mining operations on the Yuba River from dumping mine tailings into stream beds. The 225-page ruling took Judge Sawyer three-and-a-half hours to read. Agriculture had triumphed over mining.

 

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Agriculture: "The days of old when wheat was gold"7

Following the Civil War, the upper Sacramento Valley saw a boom in wheat production. In 1866, 200,000 acres of wheat was planted, increasing to 400,000 acres in 1873, and one million acres in 1882—amounting to 45 percent of the state's wheat crop.

Steam Tractor
Steam Tractor

Dr. Hugh Glenn (1824-1883) owned the largest ranch in the valley—more than 60,000 acres, fronting on the Sacramento River below Stony Creek. On his vast farms, which required 150 miles of fencing, Glenn often harvested 500,000 bushels of wheat a year, earning him the title of "Wheat King."

Born in Virginia in 1824, Glenn moved as a boy with his family to Missouri. He served in the Mexican-American War and graduated at the head of his medical school class in 1847. On March 15, 1849, he married Miss V. H. Abernathy, but in April he set out alone for California where he worked a claim on the American River and later operated an ox-team freight service from Sacramento to Coloma. He made a number of trips to Missouri, driving herds of cattle, mules, and horses back to California. In the spring of 1868 he settled his family on his large ranch at Jacinto on the Sacramento River. In addition to his vast wheat farm, he planted several hundred acres of wine and raisin grapes; he also owned large stretches of grazing and grain land in Nevada and Oregon.

Barge with Phoenix Flour
Barge with Phoenix Flour

In the final years of his life, Glenn's wheat harvests were truly monumental—his 1880 crop required twenty ships to transport it to Europe. During harvest season he employed as many as 700 men, working with hundreds of horse and mule teams. This need for dependable sources of motive power led to the development of huge steam tractors throughout the upper Sacramento Valley.

Glenn was killed in 1883, but he was such a prominent figure in the Sacramento Valley that parts of Colusa County were set aside in 1891 to create Glenn County.

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Agriculture: Wool

Second only to wheat, wool was an important crop in the Sacramento Valley after the Civil War. There were 1,250,000 sheep in the valley in 1876. It was the custom to drive sheep from the valley to the mountains in early June, when valley grass began to dry up. In the 1880s and 1890s, hundreds of thousands of summer sheep were pastured in Lassen and Plumas counties. Hundreds of thousands of sheep were also driven east to the newer states of Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. The number of sheep in California peaked in 1942, steadily declining thereafter.

Sheep ranchers derived two main sources of income from their flocks. With the spring shearing, they shipped wool to market. In the same season, spring lamb meat brought a premium price. Though the environmental pioneer John Muir had himself spent the summer of 1869 herding sheep in the Tuolumne Meadows area, he came to decry them as "hoofed locusts."8 His passionate efforts to bar all free-range grazing livestock from the sierra led to the creation of Yosemite National Park in 1890.

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Agriculture: Fruit

The Sacramento Valley enjoyed both a wheat boom and a "fruit epoch," as agriculture replaced both mining and cattle ranching as the valley's most profitable industry. On June 24, 1886, the first fruit express train left Sacramento for the East Coast. By 1907 the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads formed the Pacific Fruit Express Company, which began its operation with 6,000 refrigerator cars.

Among the vast ranchos in the Sacramento Valley, one of interest to Sacramentans would be John Bidwell's Rancho Chico, consisting of more than 22,000 acres on which he planed in excess of 7,000 acres of wheat. By 1890, his 1,500-acre orchard contained thousands of peach, prune, almond, apricot, pear, apple, olive, cherry, and plum trees. It was heralded as perhaps "the largest body of bearing fruit trees on the Pacific Coast and probably in the United States."9

During harvest season, river landings and rail sidings up and down the Sacramento Valley were lined with long stacks of grain sacks and long rows of fruit crates—all of which were shipped through Sacramento, where mill workers, packing company employees, and dock and rail hands worked around the clock to move the valley's abundance to world markets.

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The Sacramento River: Water Transport to the World

During the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, the Sacramento River was the region's water highway to the world. Up valley, wheat, wool, fruit and other crops were shipped down river through Sacramento to Oakland, Alameda, San Francisco, and thence to Asia and the eastern seaboard, Europe, and beyond. From the east, gold from the Sierra, silver from Nevada's Comstock, and cobblestones from Folsom were shipped by mule, wagon, and rail to Sacramento, and then loaded onto steamboats and barges to be transported down river and out into the world.

Chrysopolis
California Steam Navigation Company's Chrysopolis
(1868)

From the San Francisco Bay, goods arrived from the furthest reaches of the world to Sacramento, to be transshipped further up-river to Marysville, to Sierra gold and hydraulic mines, to Nevada silver mines and to innumerable towns, villages, and customers in between. The photo to the right of the Chrysopolis in 1868, taken one year before the transcontinental railroad was completed, documents the volume of river traffic. In addition to the Chrysopolis, note the number of steamboats and barges docked on the Yolo side of the river.

Chrysopolis
Chrysopolis by Jack Ogelsby

While there were hundreds of steamboats plying the Sacramento River in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Chrysopolis was the most storied of all. Known as "The Slim Princess" and "The Queen of the Golden River," it was built in San Francisco by the California Steam Navigation Company, and launched on June 2, 1860, a moonlit Saturday night.

Two hundred and forty-five feet long, with a beam of only forty feet—thus "The Slim Princess" title—it was powered by two steam engines, one on either side of the vessel. It could carry a total of 1,000 passengers, and was the "fastest there ever was."10 On December 31, 1860, it was a downstream record—Sacramento to San Francisco in five hours and 19 minutes—a record never broken.

With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad, which bought the California Steam Navigation Company around 1870, had a greater need for ferry boats. Thus, in 1875, the Chrysopolis was taken out of service, refitted and re-launched as the double-ended Bay ferry boat Oakland. The history of the Oakland (Chrysopolis) carried on into the twentieth century. In 1906 it transported refugees of the April 18th San Francisco earthquake to Marin and East Bay ports.

In 1936, the Oakland-Bay Bridge was completed, putting the Oakland out of service. But during the 1939-1940 Golden Gate Exposition, it carried fair goers to Treasure Island—an island created by bay dredgings dumped next to Yerba Buena Island. The vessel's career finally ended in 1940, when it was totally destroyed by fire during dismantling operations.

The Chrysopolis was only one of hundreds of steamboats, barges, tugs, schooners, and market boats plying the Sacramento River in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, making Sacramento for some time the second busiest port in California—second only to San Francisco—and a hub of international commerce.

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1895: Electricity—Sacramento, a World Leader
Folsom Power House
Folsom Power House

In June 1887, a hydro-power house at Colton in Southern California had transmitted power eight Miles to San Bernardino. In August 1887, Nevada City's street lights were illuminated by hydro power, and there were hydro-power operations in Wisconsin and Oregon as well. However, Sacramento was at the forefront of electrical production with the world's first long distance transmission of hydroelectric power—twenty-two miles running from Folsom to the substation at 6th and H streets in Sacramento, beginning on July 13, 1895. Although Folsom's hydro-electric power was not the first in the state or even the nation, it was the first commercially successful long-distance transmission of high voltage electric power in the nation and the world.
PG&E Electric Display
PG&E Electric Display

On Admission Day 1895, (September 9) the city hosted a grand Festival of Lights. By the end of the nineteenth century, hydro-power dams were producing electricity throughout the Sierra. In January 1897 for example, the Central California Electric Company transmitted power thirty-four miles from Newcastle to Sacramento. In 1899, electric power was transmitted sixty-one miles to Sacramento from the Colgate Power House on the middle fork of the Yuba River.
Electric Celebration
Electric Celebration

Electric trolleys quickly replaced horse cars. Electricity supplanted gas as a source of home and business lighting; and electric hydro-power from Folsom Power House quickly displaced steam-generated electricity in businesses and manufacturing facilities. Electric motors became more numerous and smaller, providing power for a host of tasks heretofore conducted by animal or human muscle or steam engines—not least of these was the extracting of gold from hydraulic mining debris with huge dredgers on the Yuba, Feather, Bear, and American rivers.
Sacramento Watershed
Sacramento Watershed

The advent of electric hydro power in the Sacramento region was aided by two conditions: 1) topography and 2) water works from both the placer and hydraulic mining eras. First, topography: we noted in Chapter 1 that the 27,000-square-mile Sacramento watershed was one of the most volatile in the lower forty-eight states, inevitably causing massive floods, entailing an endless battle against an "inland sea." But the topography underlying these floods also created ideal conditions for hydro power. From Mt. Shasta, the highest peak in Northern California (at 14,161 feet), the South Fork of the Yuba River dropped 96.4 feet per mile, and the Middle Fork of the American River dropped 92.2 feet per mile. The Folsom Dam and Power House could be only the first of many dams and powerhouses built on the American and other rivers throughout the northern Sierra.

Hydraulic Mining
Hydraulic Mining

Secondly, gold miners and mining companies had, in the late nineteenth century, built an extensive series of canals, ditches, flumes, and aqueducts throughout the Sierra to bring water, first to their diggings, and then to huge, corporate hydraulic mining operations. By the 1860s, there were more than 5,000 miles of water transfer facilities in the Sierra. With the outlawing of hydraulic mining by the 1884 Sawyer decision, thousands of miles of flumes, ditches, canals, and aqueducts lay waiting for the advent of hydro-electric power.

 

Bear River Canal
Bear River Canal, Placer County

By 1900, Sacramento's economy was in the full blush of recovery, aided in no small part by hydro-electric power. The memories of 1893 and 1894 may have lingered, but they were now cast in the rosy light of economic prosperity and the promises of a new century.

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The Dawn of the Twentieth Century: The United States of America

The twentieth century dawned brightly for Americans. With the 1898 Spanish-American War and the acquisition of the Philippines, we extended our Pacific empire to China's offshore waters. With Puerto Rico acquired in the same treaty, our empire spanned 10,000 miles and two oceans.

Eight Powers Flags - Boxer Rebellion
Eight Powers Flags - Boxer Rebellion

In 1899, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the Great Powers, stating that Chinese trade and resources should be equally open to all nations. These Open Door notes could be viewed as self-serving, as the U.S. was a newcomer to the region, whereas Russia, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and France had already negotiated or imposed territorial spheres of influence in China.

In 1899, the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, a Chinese nationalist movement, rebelled against the Open Door Policy and European spheres of influence. (Among their other causes of protest were that railroads being built by Western Powers were not feng shuied.) The Boxers, as they were known in the West, were aided, abetted, and financed by members of the Chinese ruling hierarchy. The Boxer Rebellion peaked in 1900, when 230 foreign diplomats and foreigners were killed in Peking/Beijing. In August 1900, an "Eight Powers" force of the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan lifted their fifty-six day siege of the foreign legation compound, marking a turning point in the Boxer Rebellion.

Although the United States and other Western powers triumphed in both the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippine Insurrection, these two events can each be seen as early national efforts that would become one of the main themes of the twentieth century. Yet, in 1900, the United States of America was emerging as one of the Great Powers—and saw itself as the dominant power in its sphere of influence, which included, but was not limited to, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and vast regions of the Pacific.

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The Dawn of the Twentieth Century: The Diocese of Sacramento

In 1900, the Diocese of Sacramento was comprised of the same territory as in 1896—92,611 square miles in California and Nevada. But the Catholic population had risen from 25,000 to 30,000. The total number of churches and missions had risen slightly from 80 to 82, but the total number of young people under Catholic care dropped a bit from 1,790 to 1,700.
St. Stephen's Church
St. Stephen's Church

In Sacramento, Mary Ellen Bowden donated the old two-story Crocker coach house at 3rd and O streets to the diocese; it became St. Stephen's, with a church on the first floor and a school ono the second. Staffed by Franciscan Sisters, it served Italians, Portuguese, Croatians, Hispanics, and other minorities—"a veritable league of nations."11


St. Stephen's Church Interior
St. Stephen's Church - Interior

In 1900, Jane Lathrop Stanford donated Leland Stanford's former home, which had served as the state's executive office from 1861-1867, to the diocese to create the Stanford-Lathrop Memorial Home for Friendless Children. There the Sisters of Mercy initially cared for eight orphan girls. Also in 1900, the Grace Surgery facility, a gift of Bishop Grace, opened at the Sisters' Hospital.

Stanford Home
Stanford Home


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The Dawn of the Twentieth Century: Sacramento City and County

The 1900 census revealed that Sacramento City's population was 29,982—an increase of 11 percent from 1890. Sacramento County's population was 16,133—an increase of 18 percent. The total population of Sacramento City and County was 46,115 (66 percent in the city, and 34 percent in the county).

In May 1900, Sacramento held a grand Street Fair and Floral Parade. L, M, and N streets were illuminated with new electric street lamps. Trees and buildings were draped with electric lights. Those participating included the Chinese Dragon performers and the Capital City and Oak Park Wheelmen; the Street Fair featured one automobile, a Locomobile. This may have been the same Locomobile that made an appearance at the State Fair in September.

Also in 1900, the Weinstock, Lubin department store at the southeast corner of 4th and K dominated the city block. The Thomson-Diggs Hardware Company, the Carmichael Land Company, and the Sacramento Valley Development Association were all founded. And a new cannery, owned by W. J. Hotchkiss and others, opened between Front and 2nd streets and P and Q streets. It was advertised as "the largest and best equipped cannery on the Pacific coast."12
Sacramento Street Railway Map
Sacramento Street Railway Map
(c 1900)

A Sacramento City streetcar map (c 1900) offers some information on settlement patterns. The J Street line ran from the Southern Pacific depot, jogged to H street at 20th and continued on to what was then known as East Park (today's McKinley Park). There was, as well, a K Street line and an L/M Street line around Capitol Park. Two lines extended east—one to Oak Park, the other just beyond the Y Street levee on 24th Street. The race track, in what we know today as the Boulevard Park neighborhood, is, in the map below, designated as Agricultural Park.

These streetcar lines indicate that the middle-class regions of the city east of downtown were well served; the working-class district in what is today Alkali Flat was less well served. Those living in the West End and the southwest section of the city enjoyed no streetcar service at all. In these districts lived Japanese, African Americans, Italians, Portuguese, Croatians, Hispanics, Filipinos, East Indians, and other ethnic minorities. Staffed by Franciscan Sisters, St. Stephen Church and School at 3rd and O was in the middle of this district.

St. Francis of Assisi parishioners of the day might arrive at church on the K or M Street streetcar lines, on horseback or by horse-drawn carriage, wagon, or by walking.

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The Dawn of the Twentieth Century: St. Francis of Assisi Parish

For St. Francis of Assisi Parish, the first years of the twentieth century were years of building—building up, building out—expanding to better serve the parish and Sacramento. At the turn of the century St. Francis of Assisi Parish enjoyed the services of three pastors: Fr. Titus Hugger, who served from July 22, 1896 to February 3, 1900; Fr. Pius Niermann, who served from February 3 to September 12, 1900; and Fr. Godfrey Hoelters, who served from September 12, 1900 to August 21, 1904.

 

Fr. Titus Hugger Fr. Godfrey Hoelters Fr. Pius Niermann
Fr. Titus Hugger Fr. Godfrey Hoelters Fr. Pius Niermann

 

Stanford Home
Franciscan Sisters' Convent

Fr. Hoelters appointed the parish's first Parish Council—three men of German descent and three men of Irish descent. In December 1900, these men voted to spend $1,750 to buy property on the northwest corner of 26th and K streets for a new convent. The total cost of the convent was $6,340.

Also in 1900, Fr. Hoeltersinvited Franciscan teaching sisters from Stella Niagra, New York to come to Sacramento. Six Franciscan Sisters of Penance and Christian Charity accepted his offer, arriving on August 21, 1901, following a journey that had taken four days and five nights by rail.

St. Francis elementary school had by 1900 grown into two stories and four classrooms. The Franciscan Sisters began teaching on September 2, 1901, to children in grades one through nine. By the end of the school year, enrollment numbered 150 children; so, during the summer of 1902, the building was raised and four more classrooms were added, making it a three-story building.

As the school had grown, so, too, the congregation grew, requiring more space. Thus, in December 1900, the Parish Council approved plans to raise the church and build a hall below; the estimated cost was $2,500. A contract for $3,700 was awarded to Joseph A. Pausbach, a parishioner who lived at 2109 K Street.

In January 1901, work began on raising the church. On Easter Sunday, April 7 the new St. Anthony's Hall in the church basement was blessed by Bishop Thomas Grace. Thus, by 1902, St . Francis of Assisi Parish had developed a thriving complex at 26th and K Streets.
St. Francis of Assisi Church Raised 1901
St. Francis of Assisi Church Raised, 1901
St. Francis Parish Complex
St. Francis of Assisi Parish Complex
(c 1901) — note the bell tower between church and school

 

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PHOTOS/GRAPHICS CREDITS

Fr. Augustine McClory, St. Francis of Assisi Parish

Fr. Pius Niermann, SFAP.

Bill Glackin, Sacramento Bee.

St. Francis Church and Friary (1895), SFAP.

Bishop Manogue. Courtesy of the Archives of the Diocese of Sacramento.

Rev. Thomas Grace, installation. Courtesy of the Archives of the Diocese of Sacramento.

Fr. Titus Hugger, SFAP.

St. Patrick's School, Christian Brothers High School. Courtesy of Kristen McCarthy, Christian Brothers High School Communications Office.

St. Joseph Academy. Courtesy of the Sacramento Room, Sacramento Public Library.

Sacramento High School (1887). Resources of Sacramento County (1894); 85.

Free Library. Resources of Sacramento County (1894): 93.

Sisters' Hospital. Courtesy of the Sacramento Room, Sacramento Public Library

St. John the Baptist Church, Folsom. http://saintjohnsfolsom.ca.campusgrid.net/home.

St. Boniface, Nicolaus. "The History of St. Boniface Catholic Church." Courtesy of the Sacramento Archives and museum Collection Center/Catholic Herald, unprocessed collection, manila envelope (hereafter SAMCC/CH).

St. Mary of the Assumption Church, Rocklin. "The Solemn Dedication of Saints Peter and Paul Church," March 4, 1984: 6.

St. Joseph's, Clarksburg. Resources of Sacramento County (1894): 42.

The War of Wealth (1895). http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug24.html. Library of Congress.

Yolo County Derailment (1894). Courtesy of SAMCC.

Sacramento Valley Railroad (1856). http://www.fedshra.org.

Gadsden Purchase map. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_purchase.

Gadsden Purchase plaque. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_purchase.

Donner Pass (1870s). Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Summet.

Southern Pacific Ferry, Bay City. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Pacific.

Southern Pacific Water Lines (book cover).

Railway General Time Convention (1883). Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone.

C. P. Huntington, :Octopus" cartoon, San Francisco Examiner (1896). http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/.

Central Pacific Hospital. Courtesy of SAMCC.

A. J. Stevens statue with the Cal EPA building in background. Photo by author, 1991.

Land Hotel (William Land insert). Courtesy of the Sacramento Room, Sacramento Public Library

American Empire/Eagle cartoon (1898). "Ten thousand miles from tip to tip.—Philadelphia Press." Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
American_Empire
.

Japanese Troops Advancing on Weihaiwei, Kobayaski Kiyochika, 1895. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/
throwing_off_asia_01/2000_420_l.html

Sacramento County and Its Resources 1894. Courtesy of the Sacramento Room, Sacramento Public Library.

Steam Tractor. Courtesy of SAMCC.

Barge with Phoenix Flour. Courtesy of SAMCC.

Chrysopolis, California Steam Navigation Company (1868).Courtesy of SAMCC.

Chrysopolis, Jack Oglesby drawing. Courtesy of the Sacramento County Historical Society.

Folsom Power House, exterior. www.parks.ca.gov.

P. G. & E. Electric Display. Courtesy of SAMCC.

Grand Electric Celebration. Courtesy of SAMCC.

Sacramento Watershed. www.sacriver.org.

Hydraulic Mining lithograph. Courtesy of SAMCC.

Bear River Canal, Placer County. Coleman: 102.

Boxer Rebellion, Eight Powers Flags. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion.

St. Stephen's. Courtesy of SAMCC

St. Stephen's, interior. Courtesy of the Archives of the Diocese of Sacramento.

Stanford-Lathrop Memorial Home. Courtesy of SAMCC.

Streetcar Lines map (c 1900). Courtesy of SAMCC, highlighted by author with the assistance of Khoa Van Do, ITC, California State University, Sacramento.

Fr. Titus Hugger. SFAP.

Fr. Pius Niermann. SFAP.

Fr. Godfrey Hoelters. SFAP.

Franciscan Sisters' Convent. SFAP.

Our Church Raised (1901). SFAP.

St. Francis of Assisi Complex (c 1901). SFAP.


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REFERENCES/RESOURCES

"Andrew Jackson Stevens." http://cprr.org/Museum/Sacramento_Shops_HAER.html.

Avella, Steven M. "The Catholic Church as Urban Booster in Sacramento." Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia: June 1999.

____________. The Diocese of Sacramento: A Journey of Faith. Hollywood, Ireland: Booklink, 2006.

____________. Sacramento and the Catholic Church: Shaping a Capital City. Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press, 2008.

____________. Sacramento: Indomitable City. Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2003.

Bro. Adrian Wewer, O.S.F., 1836-1914, Provindial Architect." Sacred Heart Province Archives. www.thefriars.org/archives.

Cartmill-Joss, Rose. Detailed notes on raising the church in 1901.

Coleman, Charles M. P.G.&E. of California: The Centennial Story of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, 1852-1952. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1952.

Directories, 1896 and 1900. Archives of the Diocese of Sacramento, Courtesy of Fr. William Breault, S.J., archivist.

Jubilee Greetings: St Francis of Assisi Church, Sacramento, California, 1895-1970. St. Francis of Assisi Parish, 1970.

KVIE Viewfinder. "The Sacramento Railyards." Telecast April 30, 2008

LaPierre, Bob. Sacramento Valley Medical Society Archives.

Lopez, Maria. Phone conversation August 6, 2008.

Mahan, William E. "The Political Response to Urban Growth: Sacramento and Mayor Marshall R. Beard, 1863-1914," California History, Winter 1990/91: 354-407.

McGowan, Joseph A. History of the Sacramento Valley, Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1961.

"Mercy Heritage Tour: A Walk in the Tradition of the Sisters of Mercy, 1854-2007." Folsom Historical Society Exhibit (booklet), 2007.

Myrick, David F. Southern Pacific Water Lines. Pasadena, Calif.: S.P. Historical and Technical Society, 2007.

Orsi, Richard J. Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2005.

"Parish is 75 years old." Sacramento Bee, Sunday, October 4, 1970.

Pathways in the West: A history of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity. Redwood City, California: St. Francis Province, c 1981.

Rawls, James J. and Walton Bean. California: An Interpretive History, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.

Rodgerson, Eleanor, M.D. Adobe, Brick and Steel: A History of Hospitals and Shelters for the Sick in Sacramento and El Dorado Counties. Sacramento: Sacramento-El Dorado Medical Society, 1993.

Rogers, Justus H. "Dr. H. J. Glenn" in Colusa County, California: Its History. Orland, California: unknown, 1891: 387-389.

Rogers, Richard C. The First One-Hundred Years of the Sacramento City Schools 1854-1954. Sacramento, State Capital Division of California Retired Teachers Association, n.d. Available Sacramento Room, Sacramento Public Library.

Sacramento City Director, 1901.

"Sacramento City Unified School District—a part of California History." http://www.scusd.edu/AboutUs/Pages/OurHistory.aspx

"Sacramento Diocese born 75 years ago." Catholic Herald. May 4, 1961.

Sacramento High School. www.scusd.edu.

"Sacramento Valley Transportation." Sacramento History Online. www.sacramentohistory.org.

"The Solemn Dedication of Saints Peter and Paul Church, March 4, 1984." Rocklin Calif: Ss. Peter and Paul Parish. Information on St. Mary's of the Assumption Church, Rocklin, 1883.

"Sunday Morning at St. Francis Church, 1896" (photo) in St. Francis of Assisi Church: 1895-1995 (calendar). Available in the California Room, California State Library.


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Notes

1 Catholic Herald, St. Francis Edition, October 22, 1910:9.

2 "Sacramento City Unified School District—a part of California History,"
http://www.scusd.edu/AboutUs/Pages/OurHistory.aspx

3 Mercy Heritage Tour booklet.

4Avella. Sacramento and the Catholic Church: 95.

5 "Southern Pacific company, Sacramento Shops."
http://cprr.org/Museum/.

6 "Our Century, Overview." Sacramento Bee, December 31, 1999.
www.sacbee.com/archives/newsprojects/people_of_century.

7 McGowan. History of the Sacramento Valley, Vol. 1, title of Chapter XVIII.

8 John Muir. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir.

9 McGowan. History of the Sacramento Valley, Vol. 1: 261.

10 Oglesby. "Chrysopolis": 18

11 Avella. "Catholic Church as Urban Booster": 51.

12 Sacramento Bee, October 20, 1902: 6.

 

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

St. Francis of Assisi Parish
 
  • Fr. Anthony Garibaldi, Pastor
  • Fran Anderson, Administrative Assistant
  • Ray Ibe, Webmaster
  • Susan Silva, volunteer editorial reader
  • Rose Cartmill Joss, volunteer initial historical research
  • David Sundquist, volunteer historical research Santa Barbara Mission Archives
California State University Sacramento
 
  • Professor Christopher Castaneda
  • Ryan Arndt, Information Technology Consultant
  • Khoa Van Do, Classroom Computer Lab Services Consultant
  • Shawn Sumner, Information Technology Consultant
  • Professor George Craft
Sacramento Public Library, Sacramento Room
 
  • Clare Ellis
  • James Scott
  • Tom Tolley
Sacramento Archives & Museum Collection Center [SAMCC]
 
  • Pat Johnson
  • Carson Hendricks
Diocese of Sacramento
 
  • Rev. William Breault, S. J., Diocesan Historian and Archives Director
California State Archives
 
  • Jeff Crawford
Historian
 
  • Professor Albert L. Hurtado
Technical Support
 
  • James King II

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Long-time member of St. Francis of Assisi Parish and professional historian, Gregg Campbell (b 6/17/1935; d. 11/28/2015) wrote this history of St. Francis and its surrounding community for the 2008 Centennial of our church building.


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©  St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Sacramento, CA