March 22, 1870 On this day in 1870, Turton and Knox Company received a bid to lift the Sacramento County Courthouse, at 7th and I Streets, at a cost of $16,900. The courthouse served as the State Capitol building from 1855 until 1869 when the formal State Capitol building was finished at L and 10th Streets. It took 400 jackscrews to lift the courthouse building 15 feet to the new street level. The raising of buildings and the street level was one of the major efforts Sacramento accomplished to help prevent further flooding in the city. Photograph of workers raising the County Courthouse in 1870, courtesy of the Center for Sacramento History, which is on display in the lobby of our museum. This is the only known photograph of raising a building to the new street level in Sacramento during the 1860s and 1870s. This building was demolished for a larger county courthouse building in 1913. Want to learn more about the raising of the city in the 1860s and 1870s? Take an Old Sacramento U...