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VACAVILLE V
acaville is a people-oriented city and as such, takes immense pride in its community events, such as springtime’s Fiesta Days, the Christmas Festival of Trees, which raises money for the town’s homeless shelter, and Merriment on Main, which packs the downtown every year. Sprinkled between these offerings are myriad events that draw the community together and attract others to the city to experience the city’s charm. The city has a welcoming downtown with a host of small businesses, including stores and restaurants, with an active town square that hosts entertainment events on many weekends. The adjacent Creekwalk and Andrews Park are also often entertainment venues. A thriving downtown and large, popular shopping areas – including Vacaville Premium Outlets and the Nut Tree shopping center – make Vacaville a popular shopping destination. The city has always prided itself on being a forward-looking town, as evidenced by its biotech industry, the
arrival of Icon Aircraft, large number of electric vehicle charging stations and its family oriented community with a network of parks and youth programs. Vacaville was founded in 1851 by pioneer William McDaniel, when he bought part of an 1843 Mexican land grant held by Manuel Cabeza Vaca with the promise that McDaniel would name the town Vacaville. The city was incorporated in 1892. Vacaville’s most famous restaurant, the Nut Tree, opened in the 1920s as a produce stand located under a large oak next to the main road that linked Sacramento with the San Francisco Bay Area. While the Nut Tree closed in 1996, its legacy continues in the Nut Tree shopping center, which opened in 2009. Vacaville is not a city stuck in the past, but many residents are sweet on the old Nut Tree and what it represents. When a sign along Interstate 80 marking the former business was taken down in March 2015, devotees of the old Nut Tree were there to mourn and memorialize the moment of cement and glass that took two years to build – and a
day to take down. Two of the 12-ton panels of the 72-foot-tall sign that marked the site of the Nut Tree restaurant, the historic site where a San Francisco mayor was once said – erroneously he insisted – to have met with the Mafia, were preserved. Vacaville, like much of California, boomed after World War II. Population now puts the municipality at third in Solano County, behind Vallejo and Fairfield, although many Vacaville residents would say that’s a contest they’re not entering. Rather than look at numbers, Vacaville’s boosters say its benefits include a thriving downtown and a quality of life unmatched in Solano County. For the sizable population of commuters, Vacaville is equidistant from the Sacramento area and the San Francisco Bay Area, connected to both by Interstate 80, which cuts the town in half. The hills west of town shelter Vacaville, giving it warm summers with average highs in the upper 90s and mild winters with lows that can drop into the mid-30s.
Chamber of Commerce: Vacaville Chamber of Commerce, 300 Main St., Vacaville; 707-448-6424; www.vacavillechamber.com Visitors Bureau: Visit Vacaville, 1671 E. Monte Vista Ave., Suite N-110, Vacaville; 707-450-0500; www.visitvacaville.com 44 |
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SUMMER 2022
