Raising the City

Raising the City. . Floods, like fires, required extraordinary solutions. The City of Sacramento had been building levees with limited success since 1849. After a devastating flood in 1862, the community mobilized a massive effort to raise the central City as much as 15 feet above its previous grade. The action took enormous physical and economic resources, leaving the City without sufficient finances to pay its obligations. At its worst, a city lot selected for a new city hall had to be sold by sheriff’s sale to satisfy creditors. Part of the financial burden was placed on the City’s land owners. After the City built brick retaining walls and then filled in the streets to a new level, many buildings’ first floors instantly became basements. Merchants were left with the problem of building new sidewalks at the higher street level and faced the expensive dilemma of whether to raise their buildings or not. Many of the buildings were not raised, leaving an older ground floor as a basement. Remnants of those old facades still exist on a few buildings today.