Skip to main content

Depot Museum

Depot Museum

The permanent exhibit depicts the Bear Flag Revolt of June 14, 1846, when a group of Americans rode into Sonoma, captured General Mariano Vallejo, raised the Bear Flag and proclaimed California a free republic. The revolt was achieved peacefully, but the republic lasted only 25 days, until a U.S. Navy officer, a grandson of Paul Revere, rode into town and replaced the rough banner with the Stars and Stripes.

Other exhibits and displays portray Sonoma history from the Miwok Indian period, the founding of the Pueblo of Sonoma by Mariano Vallejo, glimpses of a kitchen, parlor, bedroom and schoolroom of pioneer days, and the original stage curtain from the Union Hall and Hotel in Sonoma. The curtain was painted around 1906-07 by California artist Sidney Tilden Daken and other artists.

For railroad buffs, the Rand Room has the ticket counter, agent's desk, telegraph keys, brakeman's lantern, the big iron safe, train schedules and a map of early Sonoma Valley railroads. On the track behind the Museum are a caboose (open for visitors on request), refrigerator car and cattle car.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.