national register nomination for boulevard park historic

22 miles away in Folsom, CA, was connected to Sacramento. This generator provided enough electricity to
power the streetcar system with surplus to sell to residential customers in neighborhoods adjacent to the
streetcar lines. By 1895, the streetcar and power company had reorganized as the Sacramento Electric, Gas
and Railway Company. In 1906, SEG&R became part of a larger, regional company, called Pacific Gas &
Electric, or PG&E.
PG&E rebuilt much of the existing streetcar system and constructed new lines throughout the existing city
limits. Because streetcar routes provided access to outlying residential neighborhoods and high levels of
traffic, property adjacent to streetcar lines held the highest value, and was considered the most desirable for
residential and commercial development. By the early 1900s, Sacramento’s city limits, confined on two
sides by rivers and on two sides by levees intended to keep flood waters at bay, were almost completely
built out. Lines were extended into newly subdivided suburban tracts, including East Sacramento and
Elmhurst to the east, and Homeland and Swanston Park to the south. All were agricultural areas prior to
streetcar line construction. In each neighborhood, PG&E provided electricity and gas power in addition to
streetcar transportation. Because all were outside Sacramento’s city limits, they, like Oak Park, lacked
connection to Sacramento’s water and sewer networks until after annexation by the city in 1911.
By 1905, Sacramento’s city limits were still constrained to the original 1849 boundaries, and surrounded by
flood control levees. Relocation of the California State Agricultural Society’s fairgrounds outside the city
limits created a unique opportunity for real estate developers to create a new neighborhood, within the city
limits and located in the heart of a highly desirable existing neighborhood. Because streetcar and electrical
infrastructure was already in place, and the neighborhood was already served by city sewers and water
supplies, infrastructure costs were relatively low, and amenities unavailable to outer suburbs were easier to
provide. Boulevard Park became the first of Sacramento’s second generation of streetcar suburbs.
When Boulevard Park was originally subdivided designed, the PG&E streetcar line on H Street was the
only streetcar line to the neighborhood. This changed in 1907 when Northern Electric, an interurban
electric railroad running from Chico to Sacramento, built its freight line on C Street through Boulevard
Park. As a condition of their lease to operate on Sacramento streets, Northern Electric provided local
streetcar service between McKinley Park and downtown Sacramento. This provided a second streetcar line
to Boulevard Park, a development that promoted growth within the neighborhood as well as eastward into
Wright & Kimbrough’s subsequent development project, New Era Park.
In 1909, concurrent with the opening of the new California State Fairgrounds, another electric interurban,
Central California Traction, completed its line from Stockton to Sacramento. CCT’s principals also owned
their own power company, and developed their own new suburbs, Colonial Heights and Colonial Acres,
south of the fairgrounds on Stockton Boulevard. CCT’s local streetcar line terminated on 21st Avenue, a
broad boulevard with tracks for streetcars, interurban trains and freight trains in its center. CCT’s streetcars,
interurbans and freight trains also stopped at the California State Fairgrounds before continuing to
downtown Sacramento. CCT streetcars and trains ran along Sacramento’s southern edge on X Street, on the
southern leg of a freight belt that connected to Northern Electric’s C Street freight line via 31st Street.
Passenger vehicles entered downtown Sacramento on 8th Street, where they met Northern Electric’s
streetcars and interurbans at the corner of 8th and K Street.
The city of Sacramento annexed several nearby neighborhoods in 1911, tripling the size of the city. PG&E
streetcars were already present in these neighborhoods, and continued their service. After the relocation of
the State Fairgrounds, PG&E lines were extended to the main entrance to the new fairgrounds via 4th
Avenue and Stockton Boulevard, and to a rear entrance near 48th and V Street. In the suburban
neighborhood of Elmhurst, a broad landscaped boulevard was constructed along T Street, originally
intended as a streetcar line to connect the line at 48th and V with another PG&E line at 28th and T. For
unknown reasons, the streetcar line was never constructed, but the boulevard was retained.
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