♪♪ Ignition sequence start.

Five... Four... Three... Two... One...

Zero.

♪♪ [Music crescendos] [Narrator] Rancho Cordova exists in a special place in the universe- on the western edge of North America.

It's in eastern Sacramento County, on the threshold of the Gold Country- shielded by the magnificent Sierra Nevada- a location that was a key to its destiny.

[James Scott] What was here?

Not a lot.

Arid, rocky.

Obviously a... a pretty robust Native American presence.

Um, we... we do know that those numbers had been denuded.

But between the confluence of the American and the Sacramento Rivers, essentially all the way up to Folsom, you had no less than nine or ten Native American villages in the area.

When we're putting that in the context of Rancho, we're probably looking at Kadema being the closest to where we are right now.

[Narrator] William Alexander Leidesdorff, son of an African woman, obtained title to a 35,000 acre land grant along the American River, which occupied much of the area that Rancho Cordova sits on today.

The history of Rancho Cordova is... is fascinating, and it goes way back to the Gold Rush era, when the very first train system that was built, the first railroad that was built west of the Mississippi was actually built here.

And it stretched from Sacramento through Rancho Cordova following the American River to the, uh, outpost to Folsom.

And so, in those days, Rancho Cordova became an agricultural capital, as well as sort of a supply capital to gold miners.

[Linda Budge] To begin with, we had the Gold Rush.

And because Rancho Cordova was a major route, the Folsom Boulevard was a major route to the gold country.

And, um, people strea- they came up from San Francisco through Sacramento and streamed out towards the southern mines and the northern mines.

The Gold Rush led to a need for transportation.

So, Folsom Boulevard was a macadam road from, um, Brighton out to Bradshaw, and then it was just a dirt road going out to Folsom.

But our transportation needs also brought stagecoaches.

[Narrator] The Gold Rush attracted people from all around the world.

Their stories are told here, in the beautifully maintained Matthew Kilgore Cemetery.

♪♪ You know, I think we've had a huge variety of agriculture over time in Rancho Cordova.

We were famous for vineyards 150 years ago.

The, uh, Cordova vineyards, as a matter of fact, I think, made a name for themselves nationally and internationally.

Their wine was even featured at a presidential, uh, inaugural celebration.

But we also, in... in days after that, became famous for growing hops.

[Linda Budge] Some of the people who came to mine gold discovered they weren't very good at it or they didn't like the hard scrabble life, so they came back down to the valley and they either became merchants and did what they did, uh, in their home, uh, state or their home country, or they became farmers.

And weve- Because of the bottom soil along the river, um, and because of the climate, we grew all sorts of produce.

[Narrator] The sunny skies and warm weather that helped grow grapes attracted the attention of the army, which was looking for a place to train aviators in the early days after the Wright Brothers first flight.

Mills Station, with lots of empty land, was a natural spot for an air base.

In 1914, war broke out in Europe and new-fangled airplanes were used for the first time.

The U.S. entered the war in April 1917.

[James Scott] The War Department was quick to jump on and see the successes that the French were having, the British were having, and then also the Germans were having in weaponizing aviation, not just as a mode of... of recon, but as a way of making war on the enemy.

And so, Mills Station, eventually Mather, was a school, um, and that school would have cadets from all over the country.

Um, they joined the army.

They joined the Signal Corps, and by way of that, they would join the air service.

[Narrator] They all flew the “Jenny, ” the JN-4.

[James Scott] And most of those planes, aptly enough, were built in North Sacramento at Liberty Iron Works.

[Narrator] The base closed between the wars, but far-sighted local leaders saw a future for the base.

As World War II approached, Mather returned to life.

With the development of nearby McClellan Air Force Base, the area was booming.

[James Scoott] Things just blossomed and blossomed.

And after... after a while, you have the hyper development of east county.

[David Sander] Mather had an enormous impact on Rancho Cordova and on the Sacramento region.

If you can imagine thousands of airmen from all over the world, officers primarily, coming here for training in how to navigate these B-52 bombers.

That led an awful lot of culturally significant things happening in Rancho Cordova, with those folks here supporting diversity of local businesses, having their kids in local schools, having their kids on sports teams.

[Narrator] When World War II ended, the Cold War broke out.

Demand for jet engines and rockets exploded, and Aerojet Corporation opened a major facility.

[Linda Budge] It was going to revolve around propulsion, so they obviously needed a place that was far out of town where they might explode things from time to time, and nobody cared what they were doing out there.

[Explosion] So, the dredger tailings leftover from the... the dredging from the Gold Rush were perfect for them.

It, uh, provided a... a buffer, um, not only distance from downtown Sacramento or more populated parts of the county, but also with all the piles of rocks, then they could get out there and build buildings and do what they needed to do.

[Narrator] In the mid 1950s, the nation's long-range defense relies almost exclusively on liquid fuel missiles.

Missiles like Titan.

Its first and second stage engines built by Aerojet, powerful with a range of over 8,000 miles, a cornerstone of the country's strategic defense.

The workhorse of the manned Gemini space exploration program.

Not only did we have a SAC unit with B-52s and KC-135s, but we also trained all the navigators for the free world.

So, when the... when the base closed in ‘93, we'd actually trained, seriously, all the navigators, including people like a prince of Saudi Arabia.

[Narrator] The post-war population boom brought homebuilders and changed the area's character.

[Linda Budge] Federspiel said, “I'm not making any money growing these wonderful grapes, but I can build houses for all the young people coming back from World War II, ” and they started doing that at the intersection of Zinfandel and Folsom.

[James Scott] Federspiel brought in Art Linkletter, who was a national personality, TV guy, um, gregarious, warm, friendly.

And so, you could come out to Rancho, you could take a look at one of these houses, but along the way, you get to meet Art Linkletter, which would be, today, tantamount to meeting Oprah Winfrey I think.

[Steve Winlock] I was born at, uh, Mather Hospital and my father was a staff Sergeant in the Air Force and was stationed at Mather, and worked on the, uh, B-52s, which were the big planes that came in to Mather, uh, to be repaired and... and fixed and worked on.

And my mom was a stay at home mom.

And... and we actually, after a while, bought a house in Rancho Cordova.

I always think about how Rancho Cordova was kind of this small community with many of our, uh, military families that were coming out here to kind of start their lives or build their lives.

It was... it was kind of exciting in a lot of ways.

You know, I kind of felt like that we were building a community.

Um, there was a support of, you know, each other in building what was new.

I...

I remember lots of things that were just kind of happening that were a part of that.

[Guy Anderson] Oh, has it changed over the times!

We opened up Cordova High School, brand new, with a student body mainly of Mather Air Force Base youngsters, Aerospace and Douglas.

Those were the three.

Mather lent itself to a little bit of the military 'Yes, sir.

No, sir.'

All three of those employment areas were employing parents of my ballplayers.

They were all held pretty much accountable.

If Coach said, “That's the way you better do it, ” you do it.

And I remember walking this entire area.

I lived over on Abbington, which is close to Mather, but I would walk to Cordova High School and- which is a good distance.

And yet, it always kind of felt like it was around the corner in some ways, because you're walking through these neighborhoods that were being developed and all this kind of stuff.

It was really kind of a... a... a memorable time.

♪♪ I was student body president of Cordova High School.

An African American, Black kid to be the student body president of a school that was mainly white?

I felt like that I was accepted and a part of... of the school.

It was quiet and nice and a great place to grow up.

We lived in a really wonderful neighborhood where there were a lot of kids and everybody played and you were in and out of each other's houses, and the parents, as neighbors, were close.

So, you know, good old-fashioned values.

It was a great place to grow up.

So, the Aerojet engines could be heard three times a day.

Back then, everybody's dad worked for Aerojet.

And they'd typically go off at the, uh, test pad around 7:30 in the morning, noon, and then 5:30 or 6:00 at night.

But the great thing about it was, in between there, you could hear the roar of the B-52s landing at Mather.

And for the nuanced listener, you could tell the difference between the two.

There was a little area back on the west end of Mather Air Force Base, a road that led to the back of an area that you could drive your bicycle to.

And at a particular time during the day, late afternoon, wed park our bikes there and just watch the B-52s take off and some of them would land and it was fascinating to see 52s take off right overhead, these huge aircraft, and then to learn about, obviously, what they were being used for and to understand what Mather Air Force Base meant toward, uh, you know, the military effort, in... in the nation's history.

[Narrator] President Johnson realized the importance of Rancho Cordova to the nation's defense and made a special visit in 1964.

You know, LBJ was the- this, okay?

[Reporter] The motorcade proceeded toward Aerojets Sacramento plant.

The Rancho Cordova greeting sign could not be ignored.

[Parade music] ♪♪ Aerojet officials waited to escort the president to the control room where Mr. R.C.

Stiff, a fellow Texan and the vice president and manager of liquid rocket operations, briefed the president on the propulsion system for the Titan family of missiles.

[Rocket blasts] [Parade music] His parting remark was, “The work you do here is appreciated by the nation and I am proud of you."

♪♪ The motorcade left for the short trip to Mather Air Force Base.

[Parade music continues] The visit was short.

It included a briefing on Mathers role within the Strategic Air Command.

The president shook hands as he walked down a line of airmen talking to them and their wives.

♪♪ There was a last wave of farewell, and then the president entered the plane and was gone.

[Eric Mandell] The space race was a really cool thing.

[Radio voice] Contact flight; Tranquility Base here, The Eagle has landed.

[Eric Mandell] And I, like a lot of kids, wanted to be an astronaut, same as many.

You know, John Glenn was a hero and it was pretty cool to have a father that was involved in that sort of thing, that actually took man into space and then to the moon and back.

You're growing up in the Rancho Cordova area and you automatically have connectivity to what's going on at Aerojet.

You can literally say straight-faced that “My dad is a rocket scientist, ” or you, if you're a kid and you're... you're connected to Mather, you can actually say that “My dad flies 'Fail-Safe' missions in B-52s.

” It's a heady time.

It's an exciting time.

You're a part of something that's bigger than yourself.

And I think, all throughout Rancho Cordova, that spirit sort of pervaded.

[Narrator] The Cold War wound down.

Rancho Cordova faced tough challenges.

There was a national trend towards old suburban areas, particularly places that were built quickly after World War II.

They tended not to fare well over time.

Um, as other new suburban areas were built, the wealthier people from those original first tier suburbs would move on, some of the leadership would move on, and the people left behind would, uh, be ever so slightly less economically successful.

We did suffer that suburban decline following, uh, the end of the space race, the downsizing of Aerojet from 23,000 employees to 2300, and the closing of Mather Air Force Base, which led to another- I think the estimate may be 12,000 jobs going away.

That left a vacuum in our community of jobs and of leadership, um, and of opportunity for people.

I arrived.

My first day on the job was the day they were taking the flag down at the Mather Hospital.

They were closing the air force base.

So, it- uh, the economic opportunity in Rancho Cordova at the moment of my arrival was totally coincidental, but it was not- um, it was not rosy because of this.

Aerojet, they were still way down in employment and they were continuing to decline.

I saw Rancho Cordova as a place that was truly paying the peace dividend of the collapse of the, uh, uh, Soviet Union and didn't imagine I would be here all that long.

[Linda Budge] There was no question that right after Mather closed, we had significant economic and social problems.

For one thing, all those navigators who came to Rancho Cordova were only here for nine months, so they couldn't buy anything or rent a house.

So, that's why we have so many apartments.

So, when the base closed, out of town landlords said, “Fill up the apartments, ” and they did.

The apartment managers did not bother to do appropriate background checks or financial checks or DMV checks the way you would have now if you were going to live in an apartment.

[Narrator] Citizens decided to take matters into their own hands.

Sacramento County, uh, opposed the cityhood of Rancho Cordova.

Rancho Cordova was the leading job center, still is.

The second largest job center in Sacramento County is Rancho Cordova, and... and all of a sudden, you're going to lose that off your base.

[Linda Budge] Counties in California are not funded to provide urban services.

And Rancho Cordova had suffered from a lack of urban services and just plain maintenance for 20 or 30 years.

New houses had not been built.

Roads had not been paved.

The county of Sacramento insisted on putting what at that time was considered just low-income housing.

It added to the perception that this was not a very safe place to live, or a very handsome place to live.

[David Slander] Another argument we heard in opposition came from the county and they said, “Well, you can't- How could you possibly be successful as a city?

Where's your leadership?

” That was probably the most insulting thing we heard in the entire process.

[Shelly Blanchard] Having a city hall.

You can't fight City Hall if you don't have one, right?

The idea that Rancho Cordova was becoming a "dumping ground" for Sacramento County, true or otherwise, that was sort of a clarion call.

Uh, just, there was a whole litany of, uh, items that, you know, the leadership of the incorporation movement said, “Well, the only way we're going to be a doormat is... is if we lay down and let people walk all over us.

We need to control our destiny.

” [Narrator] Rancho Cordova became a city in 2003.

Well, Election Day proved to be an overwhelming win for incorporation.

We incorporated Rancho Cordova with a 77% approval rate, which remains the highest approval rate of any incorporation in California.

Suddenly, you have a place to go with your airing of grievances, um, your wishes, your dreams, your desires.

So, uh, having that, uh, tool in your toolkit for a place is really powerful.

And that was the promise of cityhood and, my goodness, here we are 20 years later.

It has, uh, certainly paid off.

[David Slander] If there's a pothole, um, we deal with it in a... in a fast way.

If there is, uh, a traffic issue, we can see it because we're paying close attention to what's happening here.

And you have five elected officials who all are focused on this community and trying to be sure that the government that we're putting together here was responsive to those issues.

I can tell you truthfully that anybody who has lived in Rancho Cordova a long time ago, or worked in Rancho Cordova a long time ago, is absolutely amazed at the physical changes.

All you have to do is drive down Folsom Boulevard.

We took what was a five lane, 108 foot wide corridor full of nothing but concrete and turned it into four lanes with a median, landscaping, street lights, the first sidewalks that were built on the south side of the boulevard since the Sacramento Valley Railroad was constructed in 1856.

[Narrator] Global geopolitical changes spurred large migrations.

Rancho Cordova greeted the newcomers.

[Shelly Blanchard] So, when, uh, these immigrant populations are coming to America, one of the first things they need is affordable housing, and Rancho Cordova had that in spades.

First, uh, housed the Southeast Asians.

After that, the Soviet Union bloc countries, and even in 2000 to 2003, when construction began here, waves of Mexican immigrants who came to build the houses.

I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time when refugees started coming to Rancho Cordova.

The resettlement agencies saw, “Oh, okay, we've got some housing here.

We've got a new group of refugees.

The community is pretty accepting.

School district knows what to do with them.

So lets- You know, we'll... well, um, find some housing there.

” The birth lottery had put them in a different place.

And that- You know, I was in a position to help.

People around me were in a position to help.

In terms of assimilation, there's... there's a strong desire to fit in.

There's a strong desire not to be noticeable as different.

And so, assimilation is never, um, never an issue.

To get people to retain some of their own identity is a bigger challenge.

You know, and that was kind of the goal was to... was to retain some of your original identity while you become American.

[Linda Budge] The melting pot certainly exists here in Rancho Cordova.

Actually, I would say it exists in the entire, uh, Sacramento County because we are not a place like the big cities back east where you may have a German town or an Irish town or Polish town.

Everybody in Rancho Cordova specifically lives on the same street.

We have to make sure that those people have places to shop, that they have places to learn, that they have places to, um, to work, and they have places to recreate.

Pride in a community is when they can say, “Hey, why don't you come to the MACC, because this is where the community meets.

” And it's funny 'cause, oftentimes, I'll see people meeting their neighbors.

“Oh, I didn't know that you live a block away from me, ” because I'll strike up a conversation.

That is what art does.

It brings people together.

A city can make an impact on the development of their citizens and their people by their structures or schools, the things that they do.

All those kinds of things have a direct impact on our... our development.

And I just want to say thank you.

[David Sander] The Sacramento region is growing.

I think people find us an affordable place to live as compared to other choices, for example, in the Bay Area.

You can sell a house down there and move here and still live in California.

That appeals to a lot of people.

But our business sector is also continuing to expand, um, particularly now, as people are able to do more and more remote work.

Rancho Cordova is seen as a place where you can come, live, enjoy a very high quality of life, have great opportunities for your kids and cultural opportunity, and be able to enjoy nature along the American River Parkway.

So, it really is sort of a “win, win, win ” place to live.

Building a city, what an exciting life project that has been, um, in that you can combine with your neighbors and- you know, sort of yoked in the common cause, get so many things done.

Uh, I don't think a lot of people believe that's the America we still live in.

But if you live in Rancho Cordova, it is.

♪♪ Feliz Navidad.

Prospero año y felicidad ♪♪ ♪♪ I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas ♪♪ ♪♪ I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas ♪♪ [Fireworks crackling] ♪♪ I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.

♪♪ ♪♪