The hook
The oldest art museum in the West sits in a Sacramento railroad baron's 1872 mansion, gallery upstairs and a bowling alley down.
01Why it's worth it
When Judge Edwin Crocker, lawyer to the railroad's Big Four, built his Sacramento mansion in 1872, he gave it a gallery wing to hold the European paintings and master drawings he had bought by the crate on a buying trip through Europe. After he died, his widow Margaret handed the whole thing, building and collection, to the city in 1885, making it the first public art museum west of the Mississippi, and it's still the oldest in the West. The original Victorian gallery is a period piece in its own right, ornate and a little eccentric, its ground floor once home to a skating rink and billiards room, and a large modern pavilion added in 2010 roughly doubled the space. The collection runs from Gold Rush California painting through European old-master drawings to one of the largest ceramics collections in the country.
02How to experience it
It's at 216 O Street in Sacramento, about an hour and three-quarters from the Bay, with paid daytime admission. It pairs naturally with Old Sacramento, the Underground tour, and the California State Railroad Museum for a full day in the capital.