Sacramento - Sutter's Fort State Historic Park

Where Sutter's Fort Museum stands today was once the site of the first outpost of the white man in California, set up by the German-Swiss immigrant Johann August Sutter in 1839. The adobe house built in the same year has been restored in the original style, and today houses relics of the pioneering and gold-rush period; there are also items on show to remind us of the town's founder, whose estates reached as far as the other side of the American River near Coloma. After gold was discovered Sutter was literally overrun by gold-seekers, so that he was forced to flee.