Elk Grove Heritage Park

Elk Grove House was built in 1850, by the founder of Elk Grove, James Hall. Built on the historic Monterey Trail, Elk Grove House was reputed to be one of the finest stage stops between Sacramento and Stockton. The building stood for 107 years until it was torn down for a Highway 99 expansion project.

This photograph shows the entrance to the original Elk Grove House built in 1850 by Elk Grove's founder, James Hall.

James Hall, credited with founding Elk Grove, settled in Sacramento County in 1850. County histories state he built a hotel along the Upper Stockton Highway, also known as the Monterey Trail, between Sacramento and Stockton in that same year. He painted on its sign an elk head, thereby establishing the Elk Grove Hotel. Also according to county documents, James Hall sold the property and “the tavern stand known as Elk Grove House” in 1855 and moved to Sacramento. Our reconstructed Elk Grove Hotel & Stage Stop Museum now boasts new signage over our front door harking back to the time of the original hotel and James Hall. FastSigns of Elk Grove painted the sign on the window over the door and Keith Steele of Elk Grove refinished the front door and restored the front porch. Arnie Zimbleman rewired the light fixture over the entrance that was supplied by Dennis Buscher and Steve Lambert hung the fixture. When you visit us for Christmas be sure and take the time to admire the work done by all these people to our entrance way.

When the original Elk Grove House was torn down in the name of progress in 1957, drawings were made and pictures taken with plans to reconstruct this symbol of our past. The Bicentennial Committee reorganized and formed the Elk Grove Historical Society. The reconstructed Elk Grove Hotel & Stage Stop Museum is the main feature of the Elk Grove Heritage Park. Open to visitors the first Saturday of each month from 12 noon to 4 P.M. and by appointment, the museum houses many artifacts from early area pioneers. In addition there is a permanent exhibit that honors the areas native tribe, the Miwok. This years special exhibit is "Elk Grove - The First 50 years - 1850 to 1900". This exhibit features many of our early photographs of the area and its families.

This is a picture of the Rhoads School before it was moved to Elk Grove Regional Park and restored by the Bicentennial Committee, later to become the Elk Grove Historical Society.

Here is the Rhoads School after restoration. This is the only building operated by the Historical Society that sits outside of the Heritage Park grounds. The School sits in the middle of Elk Grove Regional Park. It provides today's students with a living history program of what school days were like in the late 1800s.

The original San Joaquin Township Courthouse and Jail now rests on the museum grounds of the Elk Grove Historical Society. Originally, the building sat in what is now Old Town Elk Grove just west of the railroad tracks behind the Odd Fellows Building. It served Elk Grove until the late 1940s when the new courthouse was erected on Elk Grove Blvd. It was saved from demolition in 1983 by the Elk Grove Historical Society and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department and moved to the museum complex and restored.

The San Joaquin Township Courthouse and Jail was restored as an Eagle Scout project in 2000 by Aaron Larson, son of Daniel Larsen, a Supervising Structural Inspector specializing in historical sites for the County of Sacramento.

The project, which took about five months to complete, was done in three phases. For the first phase Aaron, with the help of 25 scouts from Boy Scout Troop 394 and friends and relatives, cleared out the jail and washed all the walls. In the second phase the windows and door were supposed to be scraped and prepared for new paint but due to excessive dry rot they were removed and new window sashes were constructed like they were built 100 years ago. New glass was installed and the finished windows and doorframe were installed and made ready for paint. New trim was installed around the windows and doors inside and out, and the floor was reassembled and filled in with new flooring. The ceiling was repaired and the soffit above the jail cells was rebuilt and re-installed. The cells once had metal bunks within them so Aaron made wooden bunks to replace them. The third and final phase was priming and painting the jail both inside and out.

Finally, Aaron developed a pamphlet with the history of the jail. The entire project took Aaron and his friends 350 hours to complete.

The jail is important to the Sheriff’s Department in that the two cells contained in it are the last two remaining cells from the original 1851 jail for Sacramento County.

San Joaquin Justice Court as it appears in 2008