♪♪
Scott: William Burg loves
history and Sacramento's
history is his passion.
A prolific author and regular
speaker on some of the capital
city's most entertaining,
yet least known stories.
William joins us today to have a
conversation on Sacramento's
past and its best kept secrets.
William, what is the importance
of us knowing our history?
William: Well, the main draws
of history is the inspiration
that you can get from that.
But not everybody is always
inspired by history. Uh,
we learn history to... for━
the stereotype is to avoid
making the mistakes in the past
and to inform future decisions.
But very often, uh, a lot of
people look at the... the icons
that we hold up as examples of
great civic leaders of the past,
and they don't see someone
who looks like them or
thinks like them.
And for others, they may see
someone who looks like them and
thinks like them, but they don't
see icons held up and people
of the past that don't look like
them, or don't think like them.
And in both cases, it
disconnects us from our past.
And so, it becomes harder to
learn, harder to, uh, make that
connection to the history of our
communities, the history of
people who don't look like us.
And the... the values of our
society, um, almost get lost
because the lessons that were
learned through hard experience,
through blood, through labor,
they don't get passed along
without that sense of history.
Whether it's a physical place,
like a historic building or the
story of a person from our past.
Uh, when a building's demolished
it's... it's gone.
It's easy to forget.
If a person is no longer there
and their story doesn't hold
then their story can vanish.
So that's the risk we have with
not learning our history.
And, uh, that's the kind of
history that I try to focus on,
is the untold stories.
Scott: When━when you're sharing,
uh, Sacramento's history with
others, what inspires you from
their reactions when they learn
about things that might be kind
of surprising to them?
William: That's... that's
really the part of it, is the
challenge of the unknown.
If you're a gold miner, you want
to mine gold where no one else
has mined it, because you're
more likely to find it there.
It may not be there, but at
least no one else has looked
and... and gone there before
you. So, it's the opportunity
to map out new roads.
And then very often making
connections with people who
don't think of history as...
as something interesting or
something engaging.
People talk about history the
way they talk about broccoli.
They know it's good for you,
but they haven't had any lately.
But how do you make
broccoli interesting?
A little cheese sauce, a
little bacon makes it tasty.
So, making history tasty, making
something that tastes good, that
people enjoy, and they want
to share it.
That's really fun.
Scott: What story, uh, dealing
with the history of Sacramento,
tends to be the most tasty to
the audiences that you speak to?
William: Well, the... the new
flavor that I've kind of become
obsessed with over the past
decade or so are the stories
of the West End.
And that's the neighborhood that
Sacramento doesn't have anymore.
Roughly from about 9th Street
on Capitol Avenue to the river.
That part of the city where
there's nothing older than about
1950, where we used to have a
neighborhood of extraordinary
diversity and vitality.
It was the heart of Sacramento's
African American neighborhood.
It's Japantown.
Uh, the Latino community was
centered there.
The Southern end of our
Chinatown and other communities
of color, all in one place,
along with a built environment
that a lot of it dated back
to the Gold Rush.
Scott: And in... in that West
End neighborhood, uh, what...
what aspect of it do━
would people be most
surprised to learn about,
um, that it was known for during
the time that it was thriving?
William: Well, it was known for
a... for a lot of things.
For the political activism and
community spirit of those
communities of color.
Of the businesses that they
engendered, including things
like restaurants, live
entertainment, music, art, and
other community institutions
that they built, uh, often
with... with a lot of
community resistance from
the rest of the city.
Scott: And all of that was,
uh... uh, wiped away
because of what?
William: Because of
redevelopment.
And then 1950s federal funds
became available to remove
large portions of American
cities. Sacramento became,
in a lot of cases, a test
market for some new
mechanisms to finance
redevelopment, uh, called,
one was called Tax
Increment Financing.
It became known as the
Sacramento model and because
Sacramento is, uh, a city of
relatively moderate size,
unlike really large cities, we
were able to demolish that
neighborhood so completely
that in a lot of ways it was
erased from our cultural memory.
Scott: Wow. So...
so tell us about some of the,
um, leading institutions
that were within this
neighborhood and what they
provided that really speaks to
how lively and vibrant it was.
William: Well, in the case of
Sacramento's African American
community, which dates back
to the Gold Rush, there were
churches like St. Andrews
AME and━
Scott: That one is still
around.
William: That're━ yes,
that're are still around.
Or, uh, Salone Baptist Church,
which is still around,
Shiloh Baptist Church. And they
fought for the right of Africa━
African Americans to...
to be able to testify in court,
which wasn't allowed the 1850s.
This was before the end of
slavery in the United States.
And it was the... the white
people of California essentially
were divided into two camps.
One that felt that California
should be a slave state.
And one that felt that it
should be whites only.
That's put the communities of
color in California in a pretty
uncomfortable position.
But they decided rather than
to give in, but to fight.
And so that political legacy,
was really the foundation
of Sacramento.
And then 50 years later, the
term, the West End came from
a group called the West End
Club, which was known by
a few different names.
Uh, was the... the Eureka Club
and uh, a few other names,
for an organization was
intended as an African American
parallel to The Sutter Club
as, uh... uh, a community
organization━
Scott: Really?
William: For... for... for
political organizing, for social
advancement, and also
for recreation, but then
for business. And that's
what, so far as I know is
the institution that gave
the neighborhood its name.
Prior to that, it was called
the Tenderloin.
Um, or the Japanese American
community, which also grew, uh,
more in the late 19th century,
as immigrants started coming
in from Japan. Sacramento about
1910, 1920, it wasn't the
largest Japantown in the
United States, but in terms
of percentages of population, we
were one of the most Japanese
cities in the United States.
And so, they brought their civic
institutions, churches, and
social organizations.
And their cultural institutions,
sushi and saké.
And these were all present in
Sacramento during this era
mixed with what was available
in the United States to create
something new, a Japanese
American community.
Scott: What... what part of
Sacramento's founding in its
early days has by and large been
forgotten, uh, by all of us that
have lived here, uh, and enjoy
the city as it is today?
William: Sometimes it wasn't
necessarily forgotten by those
of us who have lived here,
but we never learned it
in the first place. And so
that the history of... of our
Chinatown, another legacy of
the Gold Rush, and their...
their often their alliances
with the African American
community for that right of
testimony and... and to
overcome other social barriers.
Uh, they became, uh, they
were different neighborhoods
physically parallel to each
other located in the same
neighborhood, but often living
separate lives, but they all
were part of this greater
whole of the West End.
Which if, from today's
perspective, we look at this
neighborhood and we'd see a
walkable, dense, mixed-use
neighborhood with good transit
access and accessibility to
thousands of thousands of jobs,
and a wonderfully culturally
diverse neighborhood with
many entertainment options.
But in the early 20th century,
they called it blight.
Scott: What's interesting is
that if this was such a vibrant
neighborhood and arts and
culture and entertainment were
all available there, uh, all of
that was destroyed by
redevelopment.
And we've invested hundreds of
millions of dollars, essentially
in things like the Golden 1
Center and the improvements
to our museums and things like
that, to bring all that back.
And so, uh, it━ it's almost
like a cycle that, uh,
has repeated itself.
William: It, uh, hist━
There's a saying that
history doesn't repeat
itself, but it does rhyme.
So, but there are common
themes. There were efforts to
try to clean up the West End
as early as the early 1900s,
because it was already a
fairly notorious neighborhood.
And a lot of it had its origins,
quite frankly, in racism, and in
Sacramento trying to reclaim
its civic identity. We had been
the second largest city on the
West Coast, and we saw
other cities supersede
Sacramento for that position.
We fell farther and
farther behind.
Scott: Wait a minute. I...
I... I... have to jump in.
Sacramento was the second
largest city on the West Coast?
William: From... from really
the beginnings of our days
as a state, up until the
mid-1870s around 1880.
That's when Los Angeles, because
they had a land boom and two
transcontinental railroads in a
rate war with each other,
they superseded us.
And then that same railroad
came to Oakland and
Oakland got bigger than us.
And then Portland and Seattle
grew bigger than us and we
felt ourselves shrinking, and
Sacramento civic leaders said,
“Well... well, what's the
problem here?
And how do we solve it?”
Scott: Well, you know, that's
interesting because the
Big Four all used to live here.
Uh, Huntington, Crocker,
Stanford, um, and I━ I'm
forgetting the last one...
William: Mark Hopkins.
Scott: Mark Hopkins.
They all, uh, at one point had
resided in Sacramento and
then they migrated away
to other places.
What happened to Sacramento
being such a... a major━ at
least for that era, metropolis?
And, uh, did we kind of
lose our mojo?
William: Not so much the mojo
as the... the number one was
the gravity of San Francisco.
That's where the Big Four moved.
That was traditionally
the pattern. You moved to
Sacramento, made your money,
and then moved to San Francisco
and you built your great civic
ed━edifices there.
And maybe your house in
Sacramento became an
orphanage or something.
And so, uh, except for, uh,
E.B. Crocker who founded
the Crocker Museum.
Uh, so we didn't necessarily
lose our mojo, as we just got
bounced out of line. Um,
part of it was weather, uh,
flooding, access to a port, or
to having multiple railroads.
It just kind of worked
out that way. But the
solution Sacramento's leaders
came up with was instead
they would, uh, deny
that we were a city.
And the mythology of Sacramento
as a quiet, bucolic farm town,
which we never were,
began to supplant the image of
Sacramento as a bustling city.
And that's when some cases,
the... the deification of
John Sutter as the original
farmer who be━ benevolently
came to Sacramento and taught
the Nisenan how to farm.
But I... I hope you don't...
yeah. I'm being very
sarcastic here... [laughs]
But━
Scott: It... it.... it's okay.
But I... I... I, you said
something that really jumped
out at me, which is that
Sacramento was never a
farm town. We label
ourselves today as the
Farm-to-Fork capital
of the world. Uh, I... I'm
trying to figure out the basis
on... on how you make that
statement and how you
connect that up to all of
our trumpeting about our
Farm-to-Fork history.
William: We've got plenty
of forks, but not lot
a lot of farms.
Every city is surrounded by
farms... or every city was
surrounded by farms and
other resources, areas.
In fact, it's a major... it's
a major theme in urban
history, is connecting resource
flows from great cities like
Chicago to the primate city.
And this is where that food
gets turned into something
that you can ship. And we
also built the systems that
you shipped those goods on.
We built the first
transcontinental railroad
principally to ship the product
in the valley, but it wouldn't
have been shippable if you
couldn't bring it to Sacramento,
which had that large
diverse population.
We built railroads, we built
railroad locomotives.
And we canned and bottled and
brewed and stored and froze
all of the... the goods of the
valley to turn them into
something else.
That transformation is a
power that cities have
that we still have.
But, uh, in a lot of cases,
because we have the civic mental
image of the bucolic farm
towns still, we focus on the
Farm-to-Fork instead of the...
the forks themselves.
Instead of the people who were
working the farms to the people
who are transforming.
Scott: So, you... so you
consider the... the whole
Farm-to-Fork kind of, uh,
mantra a bit of a mythology?
William: It's definitely
mythology.
And mythology━ myths can
be useful.
Myths can be helpful.
And what I'm trying to do
is essentially introduce
other myths. And the━
and myths, whether they're
true or not, are less important
than what's the lesson
that they deliver.
Do they educate?
And is that education real?
And the... the farm myth has
its hazards and it has its,
um, its aspects, uh, regarding
race that, uh, have been
really poisonous in some
ways to our city.
And again, because we're in a...
a 21st century city where
things like having a diverse
population, having a lively and
active downtown are desirable.
They were very much not
half a century ago.
They were very much not during
the redevelopment era.
The... the word city
was a four-letter word.
Scott: Well, it... it did seem
like, uh... uh, for many years
up until recently, we kind of
liked to being “quote-unquote
sleepy Sacramento.”
But in one of your
books, uh, Dirty Sacramento,
you talk about that Sacramento
actually at one point
had a pretty racy past.
William: “Wicked Sacramento”
is that... that's the title.
Scott: “Wicked Sacramento.”
William: Yeah. The... uh...
uh... uh... I know, I... I also
give these talks called
Dirty History talks.
But “Wicked Sacramento” it
was part of a series called
“Wicked.” I... I wanted to call
it something else and they said,
“Well, why don't you talk
about this?” And well... the
greatest the... the... the
West End was accused of
wickedness. It was essentially
Sacramento's zone of legalized
sex work. In the same way as
the... the Stingaree in
San Diego, or The Levee
in Chicago, or Storyville
in New Orleans. And typically,
those zones of legalized
sex work were also located
next to the neighborhoods
of African Americans and
Chinese. They're considered
the least desirable spots in
the cities by the powers
that were. So, they all got
associated with each other.
They were associated with,
um, with alcohol and with
other sorts of carrying on.
Dancing and, but━ oh, uh, great,
great music. Uh, this was
the... the birth of jazz
happened in the early
20th century.
And I mentioned the West End
Club, they were the...
the group that brought jazz as
a brand new African American
artform to this city.
And it was so exciting, so
compelling that white kids
started going to Black dances
and that caused a huge outcry
among the powers that
were in Sacramento.
And so that was part of the...
the motivation for
redevelopment, is eliminating,
uh, a risk to... to... to
white supremacy via
cultural beauty.
Scott: It... it's interesting
when you talk about this
intersection between the
growth of Sacramento and
some of the things that made
Sacramento unique.
And issues of race and power
and neighborhoods.
How do you react to the notion
that sometimes it's talked
about that there are actually
three Sacramento's?
The part that makes up the local
politics and a really kind of
government-driven and the
surrounding business community.
The world of the State Capitol
and state politics, which is
kind of like the solar system
to itself.
But then there's a third one
that's talked about, which has
a rarely seen and hardly ever,
um, spoken of group of
families that are woven together
through property ownership.
You know, family alliances,
social relationships that have
been here almost since the
beginning and still exert a
great deal of influence behind
the scenes on what happens here.
William: They're... they're
definitely those three
Sacramento's and the━ those
three loci of power in part
because we voluntarily gave
up our industrial base.
A part of it is a deliberate
effort by the city to not be a
place that's known for canneries
and railroads, but instead for
government agencies and military
installations, because those
are considered white collar, uh,
jobs held by white people.
Whereas a lot of these
industrial jobs were held by
people of color and were blue
collar, uh, union jobs. Uh,
that... that third institution
you mentioned, Sacramento's
longstanding families.
We... we do have our own, the...
the people who didn't move
to San Francisco.
And they still have a large
measure of power, but
partially they're defined
by their modesty.
They don't want to feel like
they're the... the, these
paragons of wealth.
And so, they didn't build
mansions in public view,
the way that the Stanford's
and Crocker's did.
They built them farther away.
And the state, uh, it's
definitely has its own
nexus of power.
People talk about Sacramento
when they talk about California
politics the same way they talk
about Hollywood when they're
talking about entertainment.
Or they talk about Silicon
Valley when they're
talking about tech.
So that's our association
and it does have value
and it does have power.
But a lot of people feel
very removed from it.
Just, typically when they...
they, uh, say the word
Sacramento regarding state
politics, it's usually not
a compliment.
Scott: You know, uh, when you
talk about the families and the
power and how things were
organized, uh, decades ago, one
name that comes up sometimes is
Bartley Cavanaugh, the... the
storied city manager who wasn't
even, you know, a... a...
business leader in town.
But a city━ but the city manager
of Sacramento he has a golf
course named after him, who
really was like the Robert
Moses, the guy who
redefined New York.
But Cavanaugh did that
for Sacramento.
Who was this guy?
And how did━ what was his
contribution to the Sacramento
we know today?
William: Okay. Uh, to be
honest, I... I only know a
little bit about Bart Cavanaugh,
but he's a very, very
major figure in... in
Sacramento's history.
And it has to do with the way
that our city government worked.
Uh, from the 1890s, so, sort of
the beginning of that Sutter era
that I talked about until 1911,
we had what was called
a strong-mayor system.
And in 1911, we did away
with that with a short-lived
system that's called a...
a commission system.
And in 1921, we established
the mayor council that the...
the council-manager system,
which was modeled
after corporate structures.
You have a professional CEO
that is responsible to the
board of directors,
the city council. And so,
the city manager, if it was
someone who is a skilled
manager, could have enormous
power. And because of the
connections to the state and
to the... the wealthy regional
folks that you mentioned,
that third group, uh, you
could... you could really
do a lot. And Cavanaugh
was very skilled at making
connections with those
organizations.
That's another Sacramento
characteristic, though.
I'd say is, we're not a small
town, but we're a very
network one.
If you can network,
you can get far.
Scott: Well when talk about
the networking, there's a story
you tell about Cavanaugh and
a conversation he had that,
uh, people are still trying
to find out the truth of.
Can you share that with us?
William: This is unverified.
But supposedly the... the
appointments of Earl Warren
to the Supreme Court was
the result of the golf game
between Bartley Cavanaugh
and then, uh, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
But I don't know whether
or not it's true.
Scott: That is so interesting.
When we talk about these
neighborhoods and their
destruction through
redevelopment and then
rejuvenation today and all
that, Sacramento has a history
of destroying its heritage.
And... and the case example
I use is, um, the destruction
of the Alhambra, which now
is a Safeway and all that's
left is, uh... uh... a remnant
of a fountain on...
on the property.
Is there a... a.... uh, a
lack of care related to, uh,
maintaining that heritage
and history that's unique
to Sacramento?
William: I'd say absolutely not.
The demolition of the Alhambra
happens for a lot of reasons.
Um, but the fight to save
it was enormous.
Most of the people, a lot of
the people involved in trying
to save the Alhambra, which
became a huge effort, was
a diverse mixture of everything
from a dentist who was on the
County Board of Supervisors,
to young hippies who wanted
to use the Alhambra Theatre
as a rock ‘n' roll palace.
So that drew a community of
Sacramento's preservationists
together in a━ similar to the
way that they'd done for Old
Sacramento a decade before.
But it became a much more broad
and widespread consti━
constituency. And the...
the same way that Penn
Station in New York City
became this symbol of what
is at risk if we lose our
historic resources.
Uh, remember the Alhambra
is still remembered today,
half a century later, by
people who weren't born
when it was demolished.
And only a couple of years
after that, that's when City
of Sacramento got his first
preservation ordinance.
And as a result, we have
32 local historic districts
with more coming.
We have hundreds of
individual landmarks.
And we have very robust historic
preservation advocacy, both
in the community and a not
bad program run by the city.
So, there are certainly people
who don't see value in these.
Very often they are people maybe
who... who just haven't been to
downtown Sacramento since 1970.
And they, for... for all they
know, it still looks like the
way they remember it.
But in that half a century, we
really have started to gain a
sense of self and the sense
of the importance of our
community through the legacy
that built environment.
And that diversity is another
part of it.
Not just the... the history,
uh, working people in
communities of color, but
the built environment.
The places that they lived and
the buildings that they built
and associations with them.
Scott: When you talk about the
built environment and
redevelopment and the
destruction of the West End,
where did those people go?
William: Uh, that was a
question I asked after I
wrote about redevelopment.
And the answer was in a book
I wrote called “Sacramento
Renaissance.” And because they
were communities of color, they
could not move to the suburbs
because when this happened
in the 50s and 60s, racial
exclusion covenants were
still enforced. If you
weren't white, you couldn't
buy property in most
neighborhoods.
So, the African American
community moved to North
Sacramento and Oak park.
The Latino community, mostly
up into Alkali Flat and further
into Southside Park.
And then the Japanese and
Chinese communities also move
principally into Southside.
Scott: Uh, one interesting fact
you talk about is that if you
weren't white, you couldn't
move in those neighborhoods.
Who was not considered white
that might be surprising to
people today?
William: That's a... that's a
changing thing and it's kind
of a moving target.
Um, becoming white is something
that... that happens to a lot
immigrant groups.
Uh, the ones that I've studied
the most are Italians and
Portuguese in Southside Park.
Which for the most part were
considered European, but not
white when they arrived in
the late 19 th and early
20th century. But over the
course of the 20th century,
especially after the second
World War, a lot of these
groups were now considered
white.
And so, part of why space was
available in Southside Park,
an unrestricted neighborhood,
was because a lot of the
Italians were now moving
to East Sacramento, following
St. Mary's Church. Or the
Portuguese who were now
moving into Land Park
and the Pocket. So that
created space for the... the
communities that were being
forced out of the West End
to move into and rebuild.
Scott: Fascinating.
Well, we're going to
leave it there. Uh,
William thank you so much,
uh, for describing a history
that many of us have never
even heard of before.
William: Thank you.
Scott: And that's our show.
Thanks to our guest.
And thanks to you for
watching Studio Sacramento.
I'm Scott Syphax.
See you next time
right here on KVIE.
♪♪
♪♪
Scott Syphax: All episodes
of Studio Sacramento, along
with other KVIE programs, are
available to watch online at
kvie.org/video.
