Pictured: Benicia's Southern Pacific train depot was built in the 1890's and moved to its present site in 1902. Trains arriving at the depot, which sits at the bottom of First Street, would be ferried across the Carquinez Straits to Port Costa. When ferries were no longer needed to transport people and goods between Solano and Contra Costa Counties, the depot was abandoned and the tracks torn up. The building was restored in 2001 and is now home to the Benicia Main Street Program.
Lewis F. Brown (1929-2019) was elected as Vallejo’s first African-American city councilman in 1965. He also served as Vallejo’s Vice Mayor from 1967 to 1969. He was born in Mississippi. He received his law degree in 1964. Photo courtesy of the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum.