Benicia tries to keep state from closing Capitol park
BENICIA — An effort is under way in Benicia to keep one of the city’s historic treasures — the 1853 one-time state Capitol building — from having its windows boarded up and a “closed” sign hung on it.
The only surviving, pre-Sacramento state Capitol building is part of the California State Parks system. But the state is making cuts to try to balance its budget and in 2011 announced that Benicia Capitol State Historic Park is among 70 state parks targeted for closure this summer to save a total of $22 million.
If that happens, all people will be able to do is admire the outside of a building that looks like a Greek temple. California is trying to save money by closing Benicia’s logo. A depiction of old state Capitol is the sole picture on the city seal.
“The Capitol is such an iconic building,” said Carol Berman, president of the Benicia State Parks Association.
Benicia Capitol State Historic Park has already seen cutbacks during a previous state effort to save money. People who want to go inside to view the period desks, the ponderosa pine floor and other 19th-century touches can do so only from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.
There’s no debate about the building’s historical significance. The state named it a historic landmark in 1935 and the federal government placed it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
All of this hasn’t saved the park from the state’s budget-cutting efforts. But Berman and other Benicia residents aren’t about to see the old building close to the public without a fight. The Benicia State Parks Association is working with the state and the city to keep the lights on at the Capitol, as well as to keep open the adjacent Fischer-Halon house and Benicia State Recreation Area.
A turning point in the group’s effort came a few months ago, when news got out that the state had measured the windows of the Capitol for plywood and was making plans to put up a fence around the property, Berman said.
The association has been around for four decades, but mainly to provide volunteers to be trained by the state and help with Capitol tours. Now the group is looking at taking on a far bigger role, basically keeping the parks running as California State Parks pulls back.
One part of this effort is raising money. The association might have to do such things as pay a volunteer coordinator. It would have to care for the items in the historic Fisher Hamlin house, a Gold Rush-era hotel that is next to the Capitol building. It would have to run Benicia State Recreation Area.
A key to the effort is reaching a deal with the state. Even with the planned closure, the state still owns the Capitol and the state recreation area and has no plans to sell.
“It would not become private,” California State Parks spokesman Roy Stearns said. “We would not give it away. It’s still property of the state.”
The state is looking for financial help to run the parks, he said. The idea would be to get help for two to five years, with hope that the economy will recover by then and the state can resume normal operations, he said.
“There is no precedence,” Stearns said. “We’ve never done this before. We’re learning as we go.”
The state in nine cases has reached recent agreements with local groups or the National Parks System to keep state parks running. These parks include Henry W. Coe State Park, Tomales Bay State Park and the Point Cabrillo Light Station.
In addition, California State Parks is working with the Valley of the Moon Natural History Association to keep open Jack London State Park in Sonoma County and with various Napa groups to keep open Bothe-Napa Valley State Park and the Bale Grist Mill State Park in Napa County.
In the case of Henry W. Coe State Park, a group called the Coe Park Preservation Fund agreed to provide the money for the state to run the park. That will cost about $300,000 a year for three years.
Berman began her work as a volunteer at the old Capitol building in Benicia during the 1980s.
“I originally came because I thought I’d be able to wear a period costume,” she said with a laugh.
Since she was a teacher, the work of teaching history was in her field of interest. And she still looks at the old Capitol as a teaching tool.
“I feel it is important for children and adults and everyone in between to know what came before them, how this evolved, how we got where we are,” she said.
This isn’t the first time that the state has disappointed Benicia with regard to the Capitol building. The original and greater slight came back in the early 1850s, just after the birth of Benicia and California itself.
Some historians jokingly refer to the capital as being on wheels during its early years, due to its constant switching of cities. California attained statehood in 1850. The capital moved from San Jose to Vallejo to Sacramento to Vallejo to Benicia to Sacramento again, all in a span of four years.
Benicia got its turn in 1853, after it offered use of its new, brick, Greek Revival-style city hall as a meeting place for the Legislature. Lawmakers wanted out of Vallejo for a variety of reasons, ranging from a lack of hotels to Gen. Mariano Vallejo’s failure to follow through with land and building money donations.
“So Benicia, the memorable ‘city of the Straits,’ ‘the rival emporium of the Pacific wealth and commerce,’ is to be vested with new dignities . . . ” the Feb. 5, 1853, Daily Alta Californian reported.
But, the paper added sardonically, “a change in place would probably not bring about a change in habits of our Legislature.”
State lawmakers in February 1853 took over the Benicia city hall, with its Doric columns and stately appearance. They met for a few months, adjourned for the year, then met in Benicia again in February 1854 for another session.
During the Benicia sessions, they discussed such issues as draining the marshy areas of Yolo County to provide more drainage for the Sacramento River. They also voted to make Benicia the permanent state capital.
But what the Legislature can do, it can also undo. Lawmakers in 1854 discussed moving the capital yet again.
At least 100 people coming to Benicia for the 1854 session couldn’t find lodgings and had to sleep in saloons. Meanwhile, Sacramento offered use of its courthouse as the Capitol building, rooms for state offices and a building site for a permanent Capitol building, according to a history on the Capitol released by the state.
On March 2, 1854, the Legislature met in Sacramento and has remained there ever since.
That made for some bad feelings in Benicia. The Sacramento Daily Union reported that the owners of the city’s wharves refused to let the steamer Wilson G. Hunt dock there to take away the Legislature’s furniture unless it would pay $500. The furniture was shipped from another wharf and ended up at the Sacramento courthouse door waiting for the floor to be scrubbed and the carpet installed.
Benicia residents could console themselves with the knowledge that at least their city was still the Solano County seat. The grand Greek Revival building became the Solano County courthouse.
Even that honor lasted only a few more years, though, with the county seat moving to Fairfield in 1858. The building went on to be used as City Hall for several decades and later became a fire station, a police department and even a dance hall.
California acquired the building in 1951. In 1956, the state began restoring the building to the appearance it had as the state Capitol building, according to the Solano Historian magazine.
Reach Barry Eberling at 427-6929, or beberling@dailyrepublic.net.
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=132362
Posted by Barry Eberling
on Feb 5 2012.
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