Vallejo

Vallejo is a city in Solano County, California, on the north shore of San Pablo Bay where the Napa River enters it. It bears the name of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the Californio leader on whose Rancho Suscol it was founded.

The Coast Miwok, the Suisunes and other Patwin peoples lived around the bay, and rock sites in the hills above Blue Rock Springs Park are linked to them. Vallejo was founded in 1851 to be the capital of California, and the legislature met there in the early 1850s before moving to neighboring Benicia, named after Vallejo's wife Benicia Carrillo de Vallejo. The Mare Island shipyard, founded across the strait in 1854, was the first naval base on the West Coast and shaped the city for nearly a century and a half.

After the shipyard closed in the 1990s, Mare Island was turned into a district of offices, workshops, a university campus and housing. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, a theme park with roller coasters and marine animals, is the main attraction of the city. Ferries run from the Vallejo waterfront across the bay to San Francisco.

The Vallejo Art Walk opens the galleries and studios of the downtown on the second Friday of every month, as artists from San Francisco and Oakland move into its old buildings. The rapper E-40 grew up in Vallejo, and the city helped shape the hyphy sound of Bay Area hip hop. Blue Rock Springs Park, on the eastern hills, has a lake and picnic areas among oak trees.