FROM MERCHANT SHOPS TO MUSEUM: THE FORT AFTER SUTTER A Thesis Presented to the faculty of the Department of History California State University, Sacramento Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in History (Public History) by Jared Arthur Jones SUMMER 2017 © 2017 Jared Arthur Jones ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii FROM MERCHANT SHOPS TO MUSEUM: THE FORT AFTER SUTTER A Thesis by Jared Arthur Jones Approved by: __________________________________, Committee Chair Dr. Anne Lindsay __________________________________, Second Reader Dr. Patrick Ettinger ____________________________ Date iii Student: Jared Arthur Jones I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis. __________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________ Dr. Anne Lindsay Date Department of History iv Abstract of FROM MERCHANT SHOPS TO MUSEUM: THE FORT AFTER SUTTER by Jared Arthur Jones The history of Sutter’s Fort from the beginning of the Gold Rush to its reconstruction in the 1890s is important in understanding how the Fort became a dilapidated relic of Sacramento’s past and became a reconstructed monument to pioneer times. The history of the Fort after John Sutter is a history often overlooked by historians. While the Fort’s significance to California history is focused on the events there in the 1840s, the Fort played an intimate role in Sacramento history in the later nineteenth century and helped foster a romanticism for a time prior to statehood. Sutter’s Fort sparked the preservation movement in California, and the Fort continues to be a lasting symbol of pioneer times in California. Sutter’s Fort is the exemplar that a community can make a difference to prevent further destruction of a historic site and preserve it for future generations. _______________________, Committee Chair Dr. Anne Lindsay _______________________ Date v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this Public History program and thesis would not have been possible without the support and guidance of many individuals. First of all, interest in this subject matter started as a simple display for the Sacramento Old City Association’s 2014 Home Tours. Then president of SOCA, William Burg, brought the subject to my attention. Because of the overwhelming public interest in the subject, I decided to research further and make the topic my thesis. Steve Beck, a 20+ year veteran of Sutter's Fort, and Fort docents Jennifer Sallee, Bill Pickering, Steve and Judy Prey, and Carol Toyama encouraged me throughout the Public History program and helped make this thesis possible by patiently listening to my ramblings and research questions. An extra special thank you to Cheryl Stapp, a Fort docent and accomplished historical author, for her tireless help, encouragement and guidance throughout this entire process. I would like to thank my family and friends for all their continued support. The courses through the Public History program built a camaraderie amongst the students and created lifelong friendships. I would also like to thank the History Department faculty for offering inspiring courses to prepare future historians for careers in the field. I would like to thank Dr. Lindsay and Dr. Ettinger for serving as readers for my thesis. vi Most of all, I would like to thank Dr. Scott Lupo. Dr. Lupo was a mentor throughout my undergraduate career, who helped shape me into the historian I am today. His guidance, insight, encouragement, and most of all friendship helped me through the challenges of being accepted into the Public History program and certainly throughout my time in the program itself. He was and still is a listening ear, guiding hand, and genuinely wonderful human being for which I could not have found the success I did in the program without him. He is a historian with a unique perspective on a plethora of different subject areas who adds value to anything and anyone he works with. I would not be where I am today as a student of history without Dr. Lupo. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. vi List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ……………...…………………..…………………………...……..... 1 2. JOHN SUTTER AND THE FORMATION OF SUTTER’S FORT .................................. 9 3. THE FORT AFTER SUTTER .......................................................................................... 28 4. PRESERVATION AND RECONSTRUCTION .............................................................. 60 5. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 79 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 82 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page 1. Heinrich Kunzel’s Map of Sutter’s Fort, 1848……….……….………….......…. 5 2. Joseph Warren Revere’s drawing of Sutter’s Fort, 1846……..…………….….. 23 3. A map of Sutter’s Fort illustrating property sales between 1848 and 1849..….. 37 4. Copy of Alden Bayley’s letter to the California State Legislature……....….…. 52 5. Drawing of Sutter’s Fort in 1851 facing southwest.…..………………….……. 53 6. Copy of a Lithograph illustrating Sutter’s Fort, 1857…………………………. 54 7. Photograph of the dilapidated Central Building, late 1880s………….….….…. 62 8. Illustration of Sutter’s Fort as it appeared in 1849……….……………………. 63 9. Illustration of C.E. Grunsky’s plans for the Fort’s reconstruction ……………. 68 ix 1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Sutter’s Fort is intimately intertwined with many aspects of Sacramento’s history and is rooted in California’s heritage. Some of the events or topics that are tied to the Fort’s history include California’s Mexican period, relations with Native Americans, the Bear Flag Revolt, the Mexican-American War, the Donner Party rescue, and, of course, the beginning of the California Gold Rush. Notable figures of California’s past such as John Bidwell, Peter Lassen, John C. Fremont, Christopher “Kit” Carson, Lansford Hastings, Mariano Vallejo, Sam Brannan, and James Marshall all spent time within the walls of the Fort. With regard to local or regional history, John Sutter was responsible for bringing a European settlement to the Central Valley and his son, John Sutter Jr., was responsible for the founding of the city of Sacramento. The Central Building at Sutter’s Fort is the oldest permanent structure in the Sacramento Valley and has stood upon the knoll where the Fort was built since 1841. It is, however, the only original part of the Fort. The surrounding walls and rooms were rebuilt in the 1890s. Once the reconstruction was finished, Sutter’s Fort opened its doors as a museum in 1895 and has been a museum ever since. Today, Sutter’s Fort is a museum and a part of the California State Parks system and since 1947. The State Park receives over 100,000 visitors a year from all over the world, with about 60,000 of those visitors being fourth grade students visiting the Fort on field trips. Roughly 3,000 fourth graders stay overnight at Sutter’s Fort each school year 2 as part of the Environmental Living Program. Evolving programs and interpretation help draw patrons to visit and experience California’s pioneer past.1 While visiting the Fort, patrons see how the Fort looked in the years 1845-1847, which are the standard interpretive years for the State Park. This is illustrated through house museum rooms furnished with replicas of items and material culture. Audio boxes interpret twenty-one rooms as visitors go on the self-guided tour. An orientation exhibit houses some of the original artifacts from the Sutter’s Fort collection, and exhibit panels discuss the history of John Sutter and the Fort. The exhibit rooms’ interpretive period is from 1803 to the present.2 This covers Sutter’s birth in 1803 through his death in 1880, and also a full history of the Fort. There is, however, minimal interpretation at the museum that covers the history of Sutter’s Fort during the Gold Rush (1848-1853) through to the Fort’s reconstruction in the 1890s. There is so much more to the Fort’s history than just the years preceding the Gold Rush. Research at local archival facilities, libraries, and the Sacramento Recorder’s Office has uncovered newfound primary source documents of Sutter’s Fort that reveal important aspects of the Fort’s post-1850 use and its reconstruction. Despite a consensus that the site was abandoned by the mid-1850s, evidence indicates that individuals lived at Sutter’s Fort in the decades after the 1850s. Romantic views of the Gold Rush and early Sacramento development ultimately led historical societies, such as the Native Sons of the Golden West, to reconstruct the 1 California State Parks, “2015 Monthly Attendance for Sutter’s Fort SHP,” Sutter’s Fort SHP Modern Archive Files. 2 Henry R. Agonia, Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park: General Plan, Department of Parks and Recreation, October 1989, 44. 3 Fort as a pioneer monument in the 1890s. Their vision was that the reconstructed Fort was to be a testament to the perseverance of the pioneers who traveled overland to California in the 1840s and those who braved settlement in the Central Valley, not just an ode to John Sutter.3 The Fort’s