Walk Sonoma Plaza today and the town is still organized around it. Eight acres of lawns, paths, fountains, a pond, and a 1908 Mission Revival City Hall at the center, ringed on all four sides by an unbroken arc of adobe and brick — the same buildings that framed the pueblo when Vallejo laid it out in 1835 and the Bear Flaggers raised their standard in 1846. Mission San Francisco Solano stands on the northeast corner, the Sonoma Barracks beside it; the Bear Flag Monument, a bronze of a Bear Flagger raising the flag dedicated in 1932, marks the spot on the northeast lawn where Todd's flag went up. The Toscano, Swiss, and Sonoma Hotels face the square from the north and west. It is the largest town plaza in California, a National Historic Landmark district — and the only town square in the state where a sovereign republic was ever declared.
The town's lore comes from the Plaza and from the Valley. Residents will point you to the back room of the Sonoma Barracks where Todd is said to have painted the flag the night before the raising, and tell you how Vallejo, in full dress uniform, offered the Bear Flaggers his own brandy while waiting to be taken to Sutter's Fort. They'll point east to Buena Vista's 1857 vines and the European rootstock Haraszthy brought back that started an industry, and north to Glen Ellen, where Jack London wrote The Valley of the Moon at Beauty Ranch and died in 1916 with a Sonoma novel on his desk. And they will tell you, too, that Coast Miwok, Pomo, and Wappo families lived in this valley for thousands of years — and that the 1838 smallpox epidemic which swept the Sonoma Valley remains the heaviest layer of that long history.
Why People Visit Sonoma California
- Walk Sonoma Plaza — eight acres, the largest town plaza in California, ringed by adobes, with the Mission Revival City Hall in the center and the Bear Flag Monument on the northeast lawn.
- Tour Mission San Francisco Solano on the Plaza's northeast corner — the 21st, last, and northernmost of the California missions and the only one founded under Mexican rule, established by Father José Altimira on July 4, 1823.
- Visit the Sonoma Barracks beside the Mission — the 1830s Mexican army barracks where General Vallejo's troops were stationed and where the Bear Flag was painted in 1846, now part of Sonoma State Historic Park.
- See the Bear Flag Monument on the Plaza's northeast lawn — a bronze of a Bear Flagger raising the flag, dedicated in 1932 on the spot where the original flag was raised on June 14, 1846.
- Tour Lachryma Montis, General Vallejo's Carpenter-Gothic home a short walk west of the Plaza, preserved as part of Sonoma State Historic Park.
- Visit Buena Vista Winery just east of town — founded in 1857 by Agoston Haraszthy, the father of California viticulture, and the birthplace of California's premium wine industry.
- Drive the Sonoma Valley AVA — the Valley of the Moon — north toward Glen Ellen and Kenwood, with vineyards producing Cabernet, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Zinfandel, oak hills, and the Mayacamas Mountains forming the eastern wall.
- Detour to Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen — the Beauty Ranch where London wrote The Valley of the Moon, a regional Sonoma Valley site about twenty minutes north.
- Drive west to the Sonoma Coast — about forty miles to Bodega Bay and the long Pacific shoreline of Sonoma Coast State Park.
- Return June 14 for Bear Flag Day, when the Plaza fills for the annual re-enactment of the 1846 raising.
