After an unsuccessful week of trying to do business amid the din of construction, California’s legislators moved inland to Sacramento to complete their session. To the lawmakers’ surprise, however, they arrived in Vallejo to find their new home still under construction. When California entered the Union in 1850, San Jose served as its initial state capital, but legislators quickly grew dissatisfied with their accommodations and in 1852 accepted an offer to move 60 miles north to Vallejo. Sacramento wasn’t California’s original state capital. The story was so popular that when Spanish explorers under the command of Hernan Cortes landed on what they believed to be an island on the Pacific coast, they named it California after Montalvo’s mythical island. In 1510, Spanish author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo penned “Las Sergas de Esplandián” (“The Deeds of Esplandián”), a novel in which Amazon-like warriors who lived on the island of California, a paradise that abounded in gold and precious stones, aided the protagonist Esplandián. California’s name is derived from a bestselling novel.
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