Old Sacramento State Historic Park spreads out in front of you. It occupies around one third of the property within the Old Sacramento Historic District in Sacramento, California, a U.S. National Historic Landmark District often called Old Sacramento, Old Sac, or Old Town Sac. The story here begins when the city of Sacramento grew up in the mid-nineteenth century as a development from Sutter's Fort.
The Fort sat some distance from the Sacramento River, and the modern city developed along the waterfront where river transport mattered most. Before Sacramento’s extensive levee system was in place this area flooded quite regularly, so the city's streets were raised a level to cope. Because of that work most of the sidewalks and storefronts have been filled in; yet many tunnels still remain throughout Old Sacramento and the downtown area.
By the 1960s the district had fallen into disrepair and disrepute, and since the 1960s it has been restored and developed as a significant tourist attraction after a large effort to secure its future as an outdoor living history center similar to Colonial... Notice the raised streets, the filled-in storefronts, and the tunnels hinting at that layered past below.