Another trip down memory lane in Sacramento with these historic photos.

The rise of modern photography just about coincides with the growth of Sacramento as a city and state capital of California. We have the iconic photographs to prove it. In fact, historians trace the birth of practical photography to 1837, and it grew steadily over the decades through the 19th century before exploding into the mainstream in the 1900s. Sacramento really took off as a gold rush community in the mid 1840s, and took a great step forward as a modern, functional city in the early 20th century. In part one of this blog, we took you on a trip down memory lane in Sacramento with 20 historic photos of the city.  

Here are 20 more photos our beloved Sacramento from yesteryear, spanning from the mid 1800s to the 1970s. 

Whenever possible, we told you where, when, and even why the photo was taken. 

The Crocker Art Museum in 1893. Crocker Art is still iconic in Sacramento today!

In 1972, a small plane crashed into a Sacramento residential neighborhood, tragically killing 22 people as it slammed into Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor.

This is the Sacramento Bee headline the next morning.

The Sacramento residence of Dr. WM Moore in 1900.

The Flagstone Motel on 1530 W. Capitol Avenue in the 1960s.

Front Street in Sacramento in the 1860s - one of the first photographs of Sacramento in existence.

The Sacramento Governor's Mansion in 1907.

The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Sacramento hard, like many western communities and the whole nation. This is a photo of a woman living in the American River Migrant Camp during the Great Depression.

Another shot of a family at the American River Camp in 1936.

The original Guild Theater! Year unknown.

Old Town Sacramento turned into a river for months during the historic floods of 1861-62, which led the city planners to raise most of the downtown streets and establishments.

Levinson's Book Store on K Street around 1924.

Another shot of K Street in the 1940s.

Midtown Sacramento 1920s.

An advertisement for the new Parkway Estates real estate development, which is near Florin Road and Stockton Blvd. By the way, the phone number on the ad is just "2-0621"

J Street Sacramento in the 1900s, including the cable car.

Sacramento Fire Department with horses and carriages!

K Street Sacramento during the snow storm of 1942.

Hotel Berry, downtown Sacramento in the 1920s or 30s. 

A 1950s postcard for the Sacramento "Business District."

Sacramento in the 1840s! 

Sacramento aerial view from 1857. How did they get this shot? Hot air balloon? Or is it just a drawing?

Another photo of K Street during the snowstorm of 1942.

A squatter's camp in Sacramento during the Great Depression.

The Mansion, built in 1877.

The urbanization of Sacramento, as the city grows up and becomes a thriving community.

20 Things you probably didn't know about The Sacramento Bee newspaper.

The Sacramento Bee daily newspaper is synonymous with the history of the capital city and the region, itself. For those of us who live in Sacramento or surrounding areas, the presence of the Bee is so familiar that we might not give it a second thought anymore. But in fact, The Sacramento Bee is one of the nation’s most venerable, prolific, and trusted news publications. As a tip of our cap to say “thank you” for many decades of service, here are 20 things you probably didn't know about our beloved Sacramento Bee!

1. The Sacramento Bee was founded way back in 1857, amid the Gold Rush and California’s first widespread settling.

2. It was originally called “The Daily Bee” when the first issue was published on February 3, 1857.

3. But the paper that we now know as the paper that dominates Sacramento had some stiff competition from the start. In fact, the Sacramento Union was the established paper in town, founded six years earlier in 1851. The Union and the Bee competed for Sacramento readers until 1994, when the Union closed its doors.

4. The Sacramento Bee is now the largest newspaper in Sacramento, the fifth largest in California, and the 27^th largest newspaper in the United States.

5. The Bee has a daily readership of about 553,192 and 666,458 on Sundays. Between the printed and online editions, The Bee reaches 39.5% of adults in the Sacramento region every day and 45.9% of all adults each Sunday.

6. It now has a circulation that covers from the northern Sacramento valley south to Stockton, north to Redding, east to Reno, and west to the Bay Area, spanning about 12,000 square miles!

7. An editorial in that first edition stated, “The object of this newspaper is not only independence, but permanence." After more than 150 years of publication, we can safely assume they’ve achieved both. In fact, the Bee hasn’t missed a single scheduled edition in those 150+ years of circulation!

8. The Daily Bee made a big splash on the Sacramento scene very quickly. Only four days into its inception, the paper exposed a scandal when they discovered that $200,000 in state funds was missing, leading to the impeachment of the California state treasurer.

9. An Irish immigrant named James McClatchy made his mark on The Daily Bee after coming west to California to look for gold in 1949, instead becoming the paper’s chief writer and editor and eventually owning up to half of the company.

10. James McClatchy passed away in 1883, but his two sons, (C.K.) and Valentine Stuart (V.S.) McClatchy picked up the reins to continue the family newspaper business, becoming respected journalists and owners.

11. So why is it called ‘The Bee?’ Basically, the paper promised to be as busy as a bee in working to report the news. An editorial in the very first edition read, "The name of The Bee has been adopted as being different from that of any other paper in the state and as also being emblematic of the industry which is to prevail in its every department."

Original Bee newspaperman James McClatchy used a picture of a bee on his business stationary, and in 1901, his son ordered a tile mosaic of the a bee put up in the lobby of their office at 911 Seventh St.

12. The Sacramento bee is the most prevalent publication in the stable of 30 daily and 50 non-daily papers owned by The McClatchy Company, the third largest newspaper company in the U.S. with more than 3.2 million papers hot off the presses each day.

13. Over the many decades of service, The McClatchy Company’s papers have won 73 highly esteemed Pulitzer Prizes among hundreds of other awards.

14. The Sacramento Bee won five of those Pulitzer Prizes. The first Pulitzer came in 1935 for Public Service when the Bee exposed political manipulation of the federal judiciary in Nevada, and the latest came in 2007 for gold medal photography. 

15. The Sacramento Bee’s logo and namesake character is a bee called Scoopy (for a newspaper “scoop”, and was actually designed by The Walt Disney Company.

16. At the time, Disney didn’t take on outside commercial work, but Eleanor McClatchy – wife of owner James McClatchy - made a special request because she wanted a logo that would "lend personality and a familiar identity to all the products" of the company.

17. The Disney Company agreed on the condition that Eleanor donate $1500 to the Army Relief Fund and created two cartoon figures that were printed in the Bee on September 4, 1943: a bee named Scoopy (for the newspaper) and one named Gaby to represent the radio station.

18. On February 3, 2007, the Bee celebrated its 150^th anniversary, commemorating the milestone by including a copy of the original edition, as well as a 120-page section about its history.

19. Throughout its history, the Sacramento Bee has distinguished itself as a champion of progressive causes, such as environmental protection and advocacy, promoting free speech, transparency and right-conduct in government, pro-unionization and worker’s rights, and anti-racism.

20. Now run by Publisher and President Cheryl Dell, The Sacramento Bee offices sit at 2100 Q St. in the building that was one the Buffalo Brewery.