Dixon, CA

Dixon occupies its present site because nineteenth-century residents moved their town toward the railroad. Silveyville had grown along a stage route after Elijah Silvey opened an inn and saloon in 1852, but an 1868 rail alignment passed about five miles away. Residents shifted buildings and businesses to ten acres donated by rancher Thomas Dickson, establishing the current settlement beside the tracks by 1871. Rail still runs through downtown, and most of the city lies between that line and Interstate 80. Dixon remains an agricultural shipping and service center in northeastern Solano County, 23 miles southwest of Sacramento. Its population was 18,988 in the 2020 census and an estimated 21,116 in 2025. The Dixon May Fair makes that agricultural setting public each spring. Its governing district calls it California's oldest district fair and fairgrounds, and the site supports community and agriculture-related activities throughout the year.

ATTRCaterpillar84 / CC BY-SA 4.0

The four-day 2026 fair combined livestock and horticultural exhibits with a classic-car show, bull riding, a tractor pull, a demolition derby, stages, and children's activities; the next fair is scheduled for May 6-9, 2027. Municipal recreation clusters next door at Hall Memorial Park and the Pat Granucci Aquatics Center, where the 2026 summer schedule included swim lessons, lap swimming, water aerobics, recreation swim, and community events. Across town, the 22.5-acre Northwest Park supplies soccer fields, play areas for two age groups, a basketball court, walking loop, shaded lawn, and covered picnic space. Downtown's Dixon Library connects civic life to an earlier era. Founded in 1912, it is one of the few Carnegie library buildings in the country still operating as a library; it also preserves local photographs, documents, oral histories, and family records while offering current story times and after-school activities.