Sacramento History Museum

A well-organised city history museum in a reconstruction of Sacramento's 1854 City Hall and Water Works, on the riverfront in Old Sacramento. The permanent collection covers the Gold Rush through the railroad era with a good supply of original artefacts — hand tools, personal effects, business records — rather than reproductions.

The museum's signature offering is its underground tours, which descend below street level to walk through the buried original ground floor of the historic district. The 1862 floods convinced the city to raise street levels by up to 10 feet, leaving the original storefronts underground. A small number of tours run daily; book ahead in summer.

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The museum runs underground walking tours of the buried first floor of Old Sacramento — the original street level that was covered when the city was raised after the 1862 floods. Visitors can walk through the basements of buildings that were once ground-floor stores and see the original brick walls, still in place below the current street.