Sacramento's Tower Bridge has not always been golden. It spent decades in silver, then a patriotic yellow-ochre meant to echo the State Capitol's gilded dome, before residents, unable to agree on anything less dramatic, voted it gold in 2002. Opened in 1935, it was California's first vertical lift bridge: its twin towers still winch the whole central span skyward to let tall ships pass beneath.

Below lies Old Sacramento, once the embarcadero where Gold Rush arrivals scrambled ashore in 1849 before heading for the mines. Across the river, West Sacramento's stepped Ziggurat building borrows its shape from ancient Mesopotamia, while upstream the older I Street Bridge, a 1910 swing bridge, handles traffic its own, slower way.

VoiceMap's self-guided walking tour of Old Sacramento begins and ends on the bridge's pedestrian walkway, using its views to trace the waterfront's journey from flood-prone gold rush camp to the rebuilt city it became.