Here in Vallejo, we love our pets!
The namesake of Vallejo was a pet-lover—or at least a pet-tolerator. About 25 miles northwest of the city named in his honor, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo’s family home in Sonoma includes a small cottage where his son, Napoleon, kept 14 dogs, numerous cats and a parrot.
Vallejo owned the land but never lived in Vallejo, which today is a city of 121,913 on the northeast shore of California’s San Pablo Bay. The bay is an extension of San Francisco Bay, and Vallejo is in a region of the Bay Area known as North Bay. The city twice served briefly as California’s capital.
From 1854 to 1996, it was home to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, the first U.S. naval facility on the West Coast. The shipyard was the cornerstone of Vallejo’s economy for generations, employing 50,000 people during World War II and 10,000 as late as 1988. It’s now home to growing residential development and attractions such as the 215-acre Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve.
Vallejo’s biggest employers these days include Kaiser Permanente and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, a 135-acre theme park. The local economy and the city’s image have rebounded from 2008, when Vallejo declared bankruptcy after years of budget troubles and high unemployment. After budget cuts and tax increases, the city emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2011.
The high cost of living in San Francisco, San Jose and other parts of the Bay Area have helped Vallejo become a more moderately priced alternative for the region’s residents. More than a dozen high-speed catamaran ferries carry commuters every day to San Francisco.
Like the rest of the Bay Area, Vallejo enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate. From April through October, daily high temperatures average between 70 and 84 degrees. December and January’s highs average in the mid-50s. Vallejo gets just 21 inches of rain yearly, which is 17 inches less than the U.S. average. It rains just 65 days per year.
It was General Vallejo’s son-in-law, John B. Frisbie, who is most often referred to as the founder of Vallejo. In 1859, the general hoped the city he wanted to call Eureka would be designated as California’s capital. It served only briefly, and the naval shipyard was established as a consolation prize.
One of the city’s claims to fame is the Zodiac Killer, whose 1968 and 1969 murders of five people (two others survived) still have not been solved.