Sacramento’s Forgotten Gold Rush Boomtown: The Untold Winter Settlement Story

“Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”

“Carpe Diem”

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.”

What do all of these sayings have in common?

They can describe the city in California nearby Sacramento that boomed for just a month. The people knew it wouldn't last, but at the time Sacramento was uninhabitable so they did the most American thing there is and shook the mud off their boots rose to the occasion and made the most of a bad situation. What city am I talking about?

Hoboken, and this is no jokin'

Now, let me tell you the short story of Hoboken, the city that sized the day.

Sacramento California is a city at the confluence of two rivers; the Sacramento for which it is named and the American.

Back in the early days, Sacramento was prone to flooding during the winter because of those rivers.

In fact, back in 1850 Sacramento experienced a nasty flood that caused all kinds of damage so the Mayor decided a levee needed to be built.

At the same time a ferryman named Samuel Norris who owned the Del Paso land grant decided to try and create a town nearby naming it Norristown.

If you know where Sac State is, that was basically where Norristown was.

Now, unfortunately for Mr. Norris,  Nobody cared for his town. If you build it, they will come didn't apply to his efforts. But eventually in March of 1852 the rains came and a levee broke, a bunch of bridges were destroyed, and Sacramento was kind of cut off from the rest of society for a while which was bad because Sacramento was like the grocery store for the rest of Northern California. Leaving the miners and other people living in Nor-Cal without food and supplies. Things kind of went back to normal during the summer though so all was well.

Then a fire broke out in November Where modern day Old Sac is (which by the way, Old sac back then was basically the financial district so imagine Wall Street burning down, that's basically what happened.)

Of course the city started to rebuild but making sure to use fireproof material this time, but within a month of the fire the rains came and they kept going and going and going until another levee broke and soon the water was up 22 feet.

It didnt take too long for the water to be soaked up into the earth but the flood left Sacramento stuck in the mud it's said that the mud was 3 feet thick in some parts which as you could imagine, made it pretty much impossible to go through with horses and wagons.

Once again the mining camps who relied on the supermarket city, Sacramento were left high and dry in more ways than one.

Lots of people had some kind of stash in case but it ran out fast, some sold what extra they had at insane prices like flour for 50 cents a pound which in todays money is over 20 bucks a pound. Potatoes 25 cents, in todays money about 10 bucks a pound. Simple cheap basic food became unaffordable.

It wasn't long before people started to die from starvation and men risked their lives trudging through the mud to buy food, its recorded that 9 people died - drowning in their attempts.

The Chinese, having the least of all were eating leftover rotten meat.

So by January of 1853 the businessmen of Sacramento came up with a solution. Go back to their roots, take a bad situation and make do. Adapt and conquer and save the people while making some good money.

The business men headed to Norristown and set up tent shops, spread the word and told the steamships to go up the river a bit past Sacramento to this new tent city and soon Hoboken was born.

200 canvas houses, 5 saloons, 6 bed and breakfasts, 24 general stores, 3 bakeries, 4 restaurants, 3 cigar stores, 3 dry goods stores, a few banks 2 hardware stores even some book stores, an auction place, a dentist, a meat market, a barbershop and a blacksmith.  If you're a local Sacramentan you'll get this reference, it was as if Denios was a full on city. 

(Denios is a giant flea market if you don't know.)

This new town was about a half mile long down the river where modern Sac State is today. They built some docks for the steamships which made daily and sometimes more than 2 or 3 times a day shipments. They made so much money, gold shipments in just the first two weeks were over a million dollars.

Just one of the general stores loaded up 15 teams (think of them like semitrucks) in a single day. So times that by at least 25 and you get the idea of how absolutely massive this all was.

Of course just like any other place there was crime and so the people elected a government, the mayor being one of the saloonkeepers of Hoboken who made his bar the city hall and in his inaugural address told the people that Hoboken is a great opportunity to make some dough but it wont last, this is all temporary and soon they'd all be back to the metropolis, Sacramento.

Now, early on in this whole deal, the board of supervisors took a trip down the river and noticed the drawbridge which lifts for all the steamships to come up to Hoboken had sunk from all the weight being transported over it and each time it lifted it increased the risk of it toppling over and being taken down the river. They recommended shutting it down but it was kept in use until Sacramento could be used again.

So just as the Mayor predicted, as soon as the mud dried up, the bridge was closed, the people abandoned all their tents and makeshift buildings and went back to Sacramento. Leaving Hoboken or Norristown in the dust forever.

The city of Folsom was then created to be a transfer point for the new Sacramento Valley Railroad and that eventually extended our to Lincoln and to Auburn.

Interesting extra tidbit for you, Stockton had a similar issue and during the winter and they moved everything to French Camp. Unlike Hoboken, French Camp boomed every winter like clockwork, had it not been for the drawbridge issue, it could have done well but without it in operation the ships could not come.

As for the little tagline Hoboken and this aint no Jokin'

That came from an advertisement by some store owner, the words were actually

"Just give me a call up at Hoboken and there you will find this is no jokin"

Something strange about Hoboken though is that there is a city today called Hoboken in New Jersey and one of their taglines is Hoboken No Jokin'

I looked into it and that Hoboken in Jersey came first and in 1846 the first official baseball game ever recorded was played. The baseball game was played at Elysian Fields.

That fact might not be all too interesting to you but get this...

In my research of California's Hoboken a steamer called the Oakland announced an excursion trip from Sacramento to Hoboken and it's Elysian Fields on January 15th which I find very interesting.

Which Hoboken came up with the no jokin' tagline first? Was the Elysian Fields advertisement just a coincidence? I leave that up to you.