Tree Lighting Festival

The tree belongs to the Dixon Downtown Business Association. It stands in Women’s Improvement Park, at North First and C Streets, where the Empire Hotel stood in 1884. In 2025 the festival opened at 3 p.m. and the tree was lit at 7. The SeeCalifornia listing calls the event “Light Up the Night” and gives the 2025 hours as 4 to 9 p.m. The association’s calendar lists the 2026 Annual Tree Lighting Festival for December 5.

Two stages and a petting zoo

The fullest account of the festival is Debra Dingman’s report in the Independent Voice on the 2024 edition, held Dec. 5. The paper said the evening was “celebrated similar to a city-wide Dixon reunion.” The festival filled nearly two blocks of downtown. Entertainment ran without a break on two stages. At Pardi Plaza the Valley of the Sacred Heart Catholic School choir and the Orpheus West Chamber Choir from Davis sang. Vocalists performed on the second stage, in the Dixon Women’s Improvement Club near the lighted tree. Routines came from the Dixon Youth Football Cheerleaders, Dixon Dance Studio, and Hawaiian Dancers from Vacaville.

Councilman Jim Ernest and his wife, Kathy, stood near the tree. “It seems like all of Dixon turned out for the tree lighting,” Ernest said. “As a City Councilman, it’s especially encouraging to see our downtown come to life like this.”

The children’s program spread across the blocks. A free petting zoo filled the old Bank of America parking lot. Pony rides ran outside the library, and inside, the Dixon Public Library staff told Christmas stories. Other attractions included inflatable characters and a small, decorated train that gave rides to children and their families. Calvary Chapel members ran what the paper called their “annual expansive area” of Christmas activities indoors. Grace Fellowship Church provided a free photo booth, where young people lined up with friends, and a life-size nativity scene with Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, where families posed.

Ye Olde Vet’s Hall was packed. Nearly 20 local vendors sold homemade soaps, Christmas jewelry, aprons, towels, home-sewn goods, wood crafts, Mexican candies, and customized trucker hats. Santa Claus sat for family pictures in the same hall, and the Dixon Cub Scouts handed out free popcorn. Along North First Street, shops and restaurants filled with visitors. The Dixon Police and Fire departments and other merchants served snacks, cider, kettle corn, and cookies. The Dixon Lions Club cooked hot dogs.

Angela Meisenheimer’s volunteers

Jill Orr, president of the business association, said the 2024 festival drew much more help from schools, nonprofits, and local groups than in earlier years. She gave the credit to one volunteer. “I think it was the community that was really into it this year, thanks to Angela (Meisenheimer),” Orr said. “She is so much a part of this. She organizes so many people and so many volunteers. She has a huge outreach and gets everybody involved. She is an amazing person. It wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for her.”

“We had more decorations and brand-new Christmas banners all over,” Orr said. “This is the first time we had constant entertainment from cheerleaders, the Dixon Community Theater, Dixon Dance, Boy Scouts, FFA and some of the schools.” She added that the Salvation Army, the Police Department, and firefighters all took part.

The next December brought another change. For the 2025 festival on Saturday, December 6, the city announced: “New this year, downtown streets will be closed and the event will be bigger than ever!” Downtown streets began closing at 11 a.m., Highway 113 closed at noon, and all roads reopened by 11 p.m.

The corners at First and A

Pardi Plaza, the festival’s main stage, sits on the southeast corner of First and A Streets. According to the Dixon Historical Society, the Frahm Brothers built the City Hotel there in 1876. In 1885 a Mrs. Morris bought the building and tore it down to build the Vendome, which became known as the Capitol Hotel. The Dawson brothers owned the hotel when it burned to the ground in 1920. Beldon’s Shell Gas Station took the corner in 1936. Tige Thompson’s Shell station followed in the 1950s, then Pardi Market in the 1960s and Dixon Florist in the 1970s. From the 1990s until 2020 the corner was a gravel parking lot. The plaza was completed in 2020, and the society describes it as a hub for annual festivities, including concerts and movies.

Pardi Market began as Mitchell’s Grocery Store, which operated from 1910 to 1920. George Pardi later bought the store and gave it his name. John Fong bought it in 1969 and kept the Pardi name to honor the family that had given him the chance to own a business. Fong handed out free hot dogs, donuts, candy, and gum to customers, and Dixon named him Citizen of the Year in 1972. After his death his family sold the property, including all of what is now Pardi Plaza, to the City of Dixon.

The petting zoo’s lot has its own history. The Bank of Dixon opened on North First at B Street in 1911 and was later renamed Bank of America. Most of the brick around these corners dates from after November 19, 1883, when fire forced the rebuilding of nearly the entire town. The April 1892 earthquake was almost as damaging, and merchants rebuilt again.

From Silveyville to “Dixon, Cal.”

The town began a few miles away. Elijah Silvey founded Silveyville in 1852 as a halfway point for miners traveling between the Pacific coast and the Sacramento gold fields. In 1868 the railroad passed Silveyville by a few miles. Wikipedia names the Central Pacific. The Historical Society names the California Pacific and says its line was completed on August 24, 1868, on 10 acres donated by Thomas Dickson and his family. Silveyville’s leaders then moved their town to the tracks. Kirby’s Drug Store, the first drugstore in town, was rolled to Dixon on logs in 1870. The Masonic lodge followed in 1871.

Accounts of the name differ. Wikipedia says the town was first called “Dicksville,” and that the first rail shipment of merchandise from San Francisco, in 1872, arrived addressed to “Dixon.” The Historical Society tells a longer story. In its version, the railroad superintendent ordered a sign reading “Dickson” for the new station and found it painted “Dixon” when he came to inspect it. By then timetables, printed materials, and an 1872 shipment for William Ferguson all read “Dixon, Cal.” The trainmen used that spelling too. In 1874, after a push of nearly two years for “Dicksonville,” the county recorder filed “Dixon” on the new maps on the grounds that it was simpler. Thomas Dickson agreed to let the name stand, and Dixon was incorporated on March 30, 1878.