Fairfield

Suisun Rancho

Fairfield stands on level Suisun Valley as the seat of Solano County, and since March 30, 1966, its city limits have taken in Travis Air Force Base.^1,2 In Green Valley, excavation teams have uncovered artifacts of the Ion culture dating back five to six thousand years, which the city’s history calls some of the oldest traces of Indian settlements in Northern California.² The Suisun, a name meaning west winds, were a sub-group of the Patwin Indians whose village was located near Rockville.³ Gabriel Moraga, sent by the Spanish, led an army against them, and the city’s account says many set their own huts on fire once the battle was lost and perished in the flames.² Their chief, Sem Yeto, christianized Francisco Solano, applied to the Mexican governor for a land grant, and the Suisun Rancho was approved over most of Suisun Valley.^2,3 Approximately 70,000 Indians died in the next three years of smallpox brought in by the Russians at Fort Ross.² Solano sold the grant to Vallejo for $1,000, and eight years later it sold again, to A.A. Ritchie and Captain Waterman, for $50,000.² A plaque erected in 1971 by the Native Sons of the Golden West marks his burial site in Fairfield.³

Two Sea Captains and the County Seat

The city’s account says Captain Robert H. Waterman, a clipper ship captain who had sailed around the world five times, settled in Suisun Valley with his wife and laid out the townsite of Fairfield, naming it after his hometown in Connecticut.² The Cordelia area of Fairfield is named for her.² The Federal Writers’ Project guide of 1939 credits two sea captains, Waterman and Archibald A. Ritchie, with founding the town in 1859 and drawing the county seat from Benicia with a gift of land for a townsite.¹ In the city’s version, Waterman offered to have the county seat moved from Benicia, voters ratified the proposal in the November election, and he donated sixteen acres at the corner of Texas and Union Streets for county buildings.² The first county buildings were a brick courthouse and jail built for $15,400.² A Suisun City marker gives another cause: as commerce expanded at Suisun’s wharf, dry lots became scarce, creating the City of Fairfield out of necessity.⁴ In 1939 the Federal Writers’ Project guide found a town of 1,131 serving as trade center for farmers and orchardists, once joined to Suisun City by a mile-long plank road.¹

Rockville Road and the Pony Express

The Rockville House stood on the northwest corner of Rockville and Suisun Valley Roads, a settlement and stage stop on the road between Sacramento and Benicia with a hotel, a blacksmith’s shop and a few stores.⁵ On April 23, 1860, the Pony Express first used the route, its rider coming south from Vacaville to Fairfield and then west on the Rockville Road to a last relay stop and a fresh horse.⁵ He left for Benicia around 5:20 A.M., with Mt. Diablo rising above the southern horizon in the early morning light.⁵ Pioneers of the Methodist Episcopal Church South laid the cornerstone of the Rockville Stone Chapel on October 3, 1856, and after it deteriorated by 1929 it was restored in 1940.⁶

Cordelia and the Air Base

In Bridgeport, now Cordelia, the Dunker House was built in 1900 and named for Henry Dunker, a carpenter from Germany.⁷ The Dunkers ran cattle and sheep, imported lumber, and operated a blacksmith shop, a hardware store and the Pittman Hotel.⁷ On July 20, 1939, a fire swept through the village and halted its further expansion, and the house narrowly survived.⁷ Henry Studer and his brother Jim built Thompson’s Corner Saloon in 1902, and the 2008 marker calls it the only commercial establishment still doing business in central Cordelia.⁸ On land east of Fairfield the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base went up, later becoming Travis Air Force Base, one of the major departure points for units heading to Vietnam.² Forty buildings of Waterman Park Federal Housing held 160 family apartments for airmen where the Civic Center Complex stands today.² City Manager B. Gale Wilson held a design competition for that Civic Center, architect Robert Hawley won it, and the complex was completed in 1971.² Fairfield was formally incorporated as a city in 1903, and at its 100th anniversary as a city, officials and staff buried a time capsule at the City Hall complex, to be opened in 2103.² Above the capsule stands a windmill by local sculptor Chad Glashoff.²