Benicia, California

Benicia is a city in Solano County, California, on the north bank of the Carquinez Strait in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded on May 19, 1847, and in March 1850 it became one of the first incorporated cities in California, a month after Sacramento. Benicia served as the capital of California for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The 2020 United States census counted 27,131 residents. The city lies just east of Vallejo and across the strait from Martinez. Its nineteenth century history includes the original campus of Mills College, founded in Benicia in 1852 as the Young Ladies Seminary and described as the first women's college west of the Rocky Mountains, a major shipyard established by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and a railroad ferry across the Carquinez Strait that the Central Pacific Railroad set up in 1879.