Books
Annette Kassis, Author
Prohibition in Sacramento
"Damn the liquor question, anyway."
--Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917
Sacramento's open opposition to Prohibition and ties to rumrunning up and down the California Coast caused some to label the capital the wettest city in the nation. The era from World War I until the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment brought Sacramento storied institutions like Mather Field and delightful surprises like a thriving film industry, but it wasn't all pretty.
Sacramento on the Air
"I have no radio, for which I sometimes thank God."
--C.K. McClatchy, 1928
In 1921, a chance encounter with a radio receiver sent Carlos McClatchy on a determined path to break into broadcasting. Ushered by the enterprising McClatchy family, the Sacramento Bee became the first Pacific Coast newspaper to enter the radio business. For decades, broadcasting in Sacramento was shaped by the brilliant but fatally flawed Carlos McClatchy; his strong-willed, micromanaging father, C.K.; and his sister Eleanor McClatchy, who sacrificed her own aspirations for the sake of the family business.
Weinstock's
"When the doors to the store opened, it was the same as opening the doors of our home."
--Ethel Geiss, Weinstock's employee
In 1874, David Lubin hung a provocative sign over a ten-by-twelve-foot space on the corner of Fourth and K Streets in Sacramento, California: "D. Lubin: One Price." Thus began the dry goods store that would evolve into Weinstock, Lubin and Co., one of Sacramento's landmark businesses and eventually a regional giant. More than a retail establishment, Weinstock's 100-year legacy brought high fashion, progressive policies and the leading edge of modernization to California's Capital City.
