Hands on History: Frontier Farm-to-Fork Event

Continuing a popular series of interactive and fun “Hands on History” activities happening on the third Saturday each month — while also celebrating our rich agricultural heritage – Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park and Friends of Sutter’s Fort will present a special Hands on History: Frontier Farm-to-Fork event.

As an added treat, Fort guests are encouraged to arrive early to enjoy a home-cooked Farm-to-Fork Flapjack Breakfast while helping to raise funds that support the educational programs for more than 50,000 students each year.

To start the day, the Flapjack Breakfast menu will include pancakes, fruit, juice, coffee, fresh churned butter and more. After that, Fort visitors can spend the day participating in hands-on activities such as butter churning, corn husking, and learning how to plant a homestead garden that all help to showcase Sutter’s Fort agricultural history. In true farm-to-fork style, early Californians were closely connected to the origins of their food given they ate food that was grown, harvested, raised, hunted, and prepared where they lived.

As background, John Sutter’s vision was to establish a profitable agricultural empire when he built his Fort in the Sacramento Valley. He had thousands of acres of grain — with no thought of the gold discovery that would come about in 1848. That year, he had amassed 10,000 cows, 5,000 sheep, more than 2,500 mules and horses and his wheat harvest was almost 50,000 bushels. He had also planted grapes, melons and extensive gardens. However, just as he was about to reap the rewards of his greatest harvest, his lands were suddenly overrun by gold seekers, his crops were trampled or neglected, and his livestock were stolen or chased off. After the Gold Rush, the Sacramento Valley was still fertile and became one of the lushest agricultural regions in the World.