Sonoma Plaza - Sonoma, CA - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

Sonoma's plaza, once a dusty square carelessly littered with skeletons of slaughtered beeves, is green with lawns and shrubs today. It surrounds the stone COURTHOUSE AND CITY HALL, dedicated in 1908. At the north-eastern corner is the BEAR FLAG MONUMENT, a bronze figure (John MacQuarrie, sculptor) of a pioneer waving the Bear Flag from a 40-ton granite chunk; it as unveiled on the sixty-ninth anniversary of the Bear Flag Revolution.

California: a Guide to the Golden state

Today, the plaza looks pretty much the same as it did in 1939 when this guide was written. Not mentioned in the guide is the fact that this plaza was once home to a railroad roundhouse in the 1880s, something I discovered after visiting the Depot Park Museum, a block north of here. The museum is located in a replica of a railroad depot that was once located on the north side of Sonoma Plaza and along E Spain Street, which at one time had railroad tracks along E Spain Street until these tracks were moved north where the museum is located today. The railroad no longer travels through Sonoma and the tracks have been taken out and replaced with a Rails to Trails bike trail through much of town.

Sonoma Plaza was officially designated a Registered National Historic Landmark in 1961.