Prisoner of the River
LaGrange
Among the many sailing ships bound for California in 1849 was the LaGrange, a three-masted bark from Salem, Massachusetts. The ship arrived at Sacramento on October 3, 1849, and the following June was purchased by the city for a prison. In preparation for its new role, the ship was stripped to the masts and cells built in its hold.
The LaGrange served as Sacramento’s jail until November 1859 when it sank during a week-long storm. Other ships were used as hotels and warehouses along the early waterfront before they too bowed to “time and the river.” In recent years, nautical archeologists have explored three gold rush vessels and several later boats that are submerged in the Sacramento River.
In February 1986 archeologists located what is believed to be wreckage of the LaGrange, “imprisoned” by riprap and mud just south of the I Street Bridge. They found enough evidence – floor frames, hull planks, copper sheathing, curved timbers, and a keelson – to confirm that the vessel was an ocean-going sailing ship of LaGrange's size and age.
Marker can be reached from I Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
