Sutter's Fort could be history

Most any parent of a fourth-grader in the Sacramento region has passed at least once through the heavy wooden gates of Sutter's Fort. Inside, they learn about the Donner Party and the Gold Rush, and watch costumed docents play out scenes of pioneer life in California.

Apparently, once the children get out of grade school, those families don't spend a lot of time going back.

Low attendance is one of the reasons state officials gave Thursday for why the white-walled icon is on a hit list of 48 state parks Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed closing to help erase the budget deficit.

This sacrifice, parks officials said, would allow 230 other parks to stay open without draconian cuts in staff.

Also on the hit list: the historic Governor's Mansion at 16th and H streets, and the tiny State Indian Heritage Museum next to Sutter's Fort, where Swiss immigrant John Sutter established the first non-Indian settlement in the Central Valley at what is now 27th and L streets in bustling midtown.

The cuts are only proposed, and would have to be approved by the Legislature, whose members are expected to protest the idea of closing parks in their districts. Drastic measures proposed in the January budget often get watered down or vanish by spring.

"I was a curator in Minnesota for 11 years, and this happened regularly there," said Kendra Dillard, who manages the Governor's Mansion for the state parks department. "It's just the first blush. … You have to wait and see how it all pans out."

Still, the announcement that several Sacramento historic sites were considered potentially expendable set off alarms at the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"California history is such an important part of what we sell, especially to our international travelers," said Steve Hammond, president and chief executive officer of the bureau. "If those attractions aren't available, it negatively affects our ability to promote Sacramento."

Sutter's Fort is one of the biggest historic draws in town. Still, just 140,000 or so people venture inside its walls each year. By comparison, Bolsa Chica State Beach in Orange County draws 3.6 million people a year, and Folsom Lake State Recreation Area 1.2 million a year.

"That's a lot of people paying as they go through the kiosk," said Roy Stearns, spokesman for the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

The 48 parks proposed for closure are scattered around the state and include redwood forests, a remote beach and numerous historic sites. Closing the sites would eliminate 136 positions, and help the parks department cut about 8.9 percent – or $13.3 million – from its general fund budget.

The parks would be put in caretaker mode, and reopened when the budget situation improves.

Stearns said the historic sites just don't pull in the visitors, or the revenue, of popular recreation areas: "To preserve as much of the system as we can with this cut in revenue, we had to decide which places generate the revenue to keep as much of our system open as possible."

Historic parks, he said, "cater to a certain audience that is very dedicated to their love of historic places. They're not going to be thrilled."

That audience includes lots of schoolkids, parents and teachers.

That was the demographic gathered at Sutter's Fort Thursday afternoon. Dressed in pioneer clothes, students from the Montessori Learning Center in Salinas watched a staff member fire a musket as two dads roasted chickens over an open fire.

They planned to spend the night sleeping in a bunkroom as part of the Environmental Living Program that brings about 2,100 students and more than 1,300 of their parents to Sutter's Fort overnight each year.

"It's an absolute blast," parent Clay Purcell said as he watched chickens browning over the courtyard fire.

Sutter's Fort is a staple of the California history curriculum at many schools, including Sacramento Country Day School.

"Every year we build several weeks of our curriculum around Sutter's Fort," said headmaster Stephen Repsher. "It's really a tremendous resource, and to shut it down would be an awful thing. The government would be better advised to find another nonprofit to take it over."

Sutter's Fort, called New Helvetia by Sutter, was a destination for pioneers headed toward California. In 1847, Sutter sent aid to the Donner Party trapped in the Sierra snow, and the fort contains an exhibit on the group.

A party of men working for Sutter also discovered gold in the American River at Coloma, setting off the California Gold Rush.

The Gold Rush turned out to be the ruin of Sutter, as new arrivals overran his settlement. By 1871, Sutter's Fort had fallen into disrepair. The Native Sons of the Golden West purchased the site in 1890 and turned it over to the state. Reconstruction was completed in 1905.

Even as the state parks agency proposes closing historic sites in Sacramento, it's planning expenditures in others. Money for capital improvements comes from a different pot – bond funding – and is not subject to the same pressures as the operating budget.

If schoolchildren can't learn about the Donner Party at Sutter's Fort anymore, they always could head up to Donner Memorial State Park near Lake Tahoe, where the state proposes spending $6.6 million on a new visitor center.

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• Call The Bee's Mary Lynne Vellinga, (916) 321-1094.