Housed in the old Wells Fargo building at 823 Sutter Street — itself a historical artefact, with its original vault still intact — the Folsom History Museum covers the town's Gold Rush origins, its role as a Pony Express stop, and the story of the first long-distance electrical transmission in the United States, which ran from Folsom to Sacramento in 1895. Small but well-curated. Phone: 916/985-2707.
Folsom History Museum
Gold Rush, Pony Express, and first long-distance electrical transmission in a historic Wells Fargo vault
A story
Folsom was one of twenty stations on the original Pony Express route, established in April 1860. Riders carrying mail from St Joseph, Missouri, would end their Sacramento Valley leg at this town before handing off to boats for the final stretch to Sacramento. The whole service lasted only 18 months before the transcontinental telegraph made it obsolete, but the Folsom leg is commemorated in a bronze rider near the museum entrance.