On January 3, 1853, the Sacramento Daily Union newspaper published Mayor Champion Israel Hutchinson and George Gordon’s plans for a city waterworks building to help prevent any further fires in Sacramento, such as the Great Conflagration that occurred the previous November. That fire burned 80 percent of the city in just a few hours. The next day, January 4th, the mayor proposed an election be held on January 13th for deciding the future of a waterworks and that the plans could be viewed at the Orleans Hotel on Second Street until then. Voters rejected the plans proposed for a waterworks but approved, in some sense, a small tax for building one so the city moved forward with the building plans despite opposition. Work on the building began at Front and I Streets in October and was completed in April 1854. The building not only served as a waterworks, but also as Sacramento’s city hall. Today, the Sacramento History Museum is housed in a reconstruction of the City Hall and Waterworks ...