Description of Gold Rush Days, an annual event held in Old Sacramento featuring costumed performers, old-time music, historic re-enactments, gold panning, wagon rides and children’s activities.
Every Labor Day weekend, Old Sacramento hosts Gold Rush Days. Old Sacramento is the perfect place to hold this free family friendly festival that features costumed performers, old-time music on multiple stages, historic re-enactments, gold panning, wagon rides and children’s activities. Other activities this year included a country western dance party and outdoor movie showings.
You can walk the cobble streets or wood sidewalks taking in the atmosphere, and listening to old-time music. You can also take a wagon ride around Old Sacramento ($3 per person) or treat the children to a pony ride ($5 per person). Or, you can always take a train ride or a one-hour river cruise leaving from Old Sacramento.
I headed down to Old Sacramento on the last day of Gold Rush Days.
Tip: On Sunday’s and on holidays you can park in Downtown Sacramento on the street for free – but you will have to pay for parking in the Old Sacramento parking lot or the nearby Tower Bridge parking lot on those days.
SacramentoRevealed.com – All Things Sacramento (from a personal perspective)
During Gold Rush Days every effort is made to take Old Sacramento back in time. For example, parking meters are covered with burlap to make them as unobtrusive as possible.
Normally, truckloads of dirt are brought in to cover the asphalt to add an authentic touch – but this year, like last year, covering the street with dirt was abandoned in light of the ongoing drought. The amount of water needed to hose away the dirt afterwards cannot be justified under the circumstances.
Among other highlights of Gold Rush Days are historical re-enactments. For example, volunteer actors in period costume (with headset microphones) take to a cordoned off street to set up a scenario that led to two heroic rescues from the second story of two of the buildings.
Smoke from the second story of the buildings, followed by the screaming of women needing rescue, and the clanging of the horse-drawn fire truck accompanied by firemen with hoses and buckets coming to the rescue are all part of the fun. Historically, fires were a common occurrence when the buildings in what is now Old Sacramento were largely built of wood and canvas.
The volunteers in period costume walking around Old Sacramento are only too glad to chat with you about, for example, their success (or not) in the goldfields or the importance of securing the vote for women.
Now, I don’t want to give anything else away – so if you have not attended Gold Rush Days in the past – there is always next year.
See related blog post: Sacramento’s Gold Rush Saloons
Comments on Sacramento Gold Rush Days?
Did your attend Gold Rush Days this year – or recently? What is your favorite part of Gold Rush Days?
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