New CRC Blog- Two Gentlemen in Verona, California

By Jim Morris

When I hopped into rice grower Mike Daddow’s pickup truck recently and we traveled along the Garden Highway, I never expected to view history. My interest was piqued near his shop in Nicolaus when I spotted a sign along the road for the Verona Marina.

Moments later we turned onto Vernon Road that essentially represents much of the community known as Vernon.  The mystery deepened.  I’ve traveled extensively through the Sacramento Valley but honestly had never heard of Verona or Vernon.

After a Google search and several phone calls I found a tremendous resource at the Community Memorial Museum of Sutter County who filled me in on a lot of the backstory.

It turns out this extremely rural area was once the Sutter County seat.  The town was originally known as Vernon and was founded by ship captain James Savage.  Savage was in Chile buying a load of mahogany wood to New York when word of the Gold Rush reached him.  Instead of returning to New York, he traveled to the Sacramento Valley, used the mahogany to build a three-story hotel and set up shop.

The town of Vernon was born in 1849 and grew to about 50 buildings, including Savage’s hotel, several boarding houses, stores, saloons, gambling houses, a bowling alley, blacksmith shop, butcher, laundry and post office.  It took less than two years for the town to falter, as the high water of the Feather River allowed ships to bypass Vernon and provide Gold Mining supplies to Marysville instead.

Adding insult to injury, the town name had to be changed from Vernon to Verona. As the local historian explained to me, in the days before zip codes you couldn’t have two towns with the same name in the same state.  Vernon, Sutter County lost out to Vernon, Los Angeles County.  Despite its brief heyday this community had another important distinction – an impressive diversity. In the early 20th century, residents included Portuguese, Japanese, East Indian, African-American, Korean, Chinese and even Hawaiian settlers.  Historians don’t know why this diversity occurred but it’s another fascinating nugget of information.

Travel down Vernon Road in Verona today and you’ll see orchards, rice fields and little else.  That magnificent Mahogany hotel burned down in 1868.  Keep alert for this schoolhouse that’s still standing.

You have to make a concerted effort to even find this small part of the Sacramento Valley, but it stands as a reminder of the rich history of our region.

Take a road less traveled and you very well could find your own history lesson!

---

Jim Morris is Communications Manager for the California Rice Commission. Jim has worked in communications for more than 20 years. When he’s not on the job, he enjoys his family, faith, football, outrageous monster stories and running marathon