Fairfield is a city in and the county seat of Solano County, California, in the North Bay sub-region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Take a look below for 20 amazing and fun facts about Fairfield, California, United States.
1. It is generally considered the midpoint between the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, approximately 40 miles (64 km) from the city center of each city, approximately 40 miles (64 km) from the city center of Oakland, less than 19 miles (31 km) from Napa Valley, 16 miles (26 km) from the Carquinez Bridge, and 14 miles (23 km) from the Benicia Bridge.
2. Fairfield was founded in 1856 by clippership captain Robert H. Waterman, and named after his former hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut.
3. It is the home of Travis Air Force Base and the headquarters of Jelly Belly.
4. With a population of 119,881 at the 2020 census, it is slightly smaller in population than Vallejo.
5. Other nearby cities include Suisun City, Vacaville, Rio Vista, Benicia, and Napa.
6. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 37.6 square miles (97 km2), of which, 34.4 square miles (89 km2) of it is land and 3.2 square miles (8.3 km2) of it is water. The total area is 5.65% water.
7. The city is located within the California Coastal Ranges. The city is centered directly north of the Suisun Bay and northeast of the San Pablo Bay.
8. Much of the Suisun Bay contains the Suisun Marsh, the largest saltwater marsh on the west coast of the United States.
9. The city includes one hospital, NorthBay Medical Center, a 154-bed advanced medical facility that also features a level II Trauma Center.
10. According to the City of Fairfield website, Native Americans, such as those from the Ion culture, settled in the Rockville and Green Valley areas.
11. Artifacts that have been found from some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Fairfield area are dated to be around five to six thousand years old, making them some of the oldest Native American settlements in Northern California.
12. The first European contact came in 1810 when the Spanish army was ordered to attack the Suisun Indians.
13. In 1835 the Mexican General Vallejo was so magnanimous in victory over the Indian Chief Sem Yeto that the chief later became his ally in conflicts against other tribes.
14. In 1837 the Indian Chief Solano received the Rancho Suisun Mexican land grant.
15. This grant eventually came into the hands of a clipper ship captain from Fairfield, Connecticut named Robert H. Waterman.
16. He not only parceled out the town in 1856, but also, in a commercially shrewd move, entered Fairfield in the race for Solano County seat in 1858, and won it from Benicia.
17. As an inducement he granted 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land for the construction of county buildings. In 1903 Fairfield was incorporated as a city.
18. In August 2020, parts of Fairfield were evacuated due to the Hennessey Fire, which resulted in the burning of over 315,000 acres (127,476 ha) in five counties, including in nearby Vacaville.
19. Interstate 80 passes through Fairfield, connecting San Francisco to the southwest and Sacramento to the northeast. Interstate 680 begins its journey south through the eastern cities of the Bay Area to San Jose. State Route 12 connects Fairfield with Napa to the west, and Rio Vista to the east.
20. The Fairfield-Vacaville railroad station on Peabody Rd serves the communities of Fairfield/Suisun and Vacaville. The station opened in November 2017.
