Five Things I Didn't Know about Redding

1. The Sacramento River runs right through it. The city is located at the extreme northwestern end of California's Central Valley, a major agricultural area. On the north, west and east, the city reaches into the foothills of the Cascades. The city has the second-highest average possible sunshine in the United States (88% -- Yuma, Arizona has the highest), and they get an average of almost five inches of (wet) snow every year.

2. The Southern Pacific built a stop named for railroad man Benjamin B. Redding, but in 1874, town residents decided it should be spelled "Reading" for the pioneer Pierson B. Reading, who had owned the area under an 1844 Mexican land grant . Since the railroad didn't accept that name officially, the town returned to spelling its name "Redding" in 1880. The Redding Area Bus Authority main depot is located next to the train station. Amtrak trains, freight trains, city buses and intercity buses are available there. 

2. Redding is the county seat of Shasta county and with a population of around 90,000, Redding is the largest city in the Shasta Cascade region (which includes eight other counties in the area that, on the north and east, border Oregon and Nevada). The smallest age groups in the 2010 census were people between 18 and 24 and people over 65. Those two groups together were roughly equal to any of the other age groupings (under 18, 25 to 44, and 45 to 64). Women outnumber men and more than 85% of people identify themselves as white. And City Hall has a sculpture garden. 

  

4. Turtle Bay Exploration Park includes a museum and gardens on about 300 acres. The Sundial Bridge is also located in the park, providing a pedestrian bridge across the Sacramento River. The sundial is accurate only on the summer solstice, but the tip of its shadow moves at about a foot a minute, allowing viewers to watch the effect of the earth's rotation. The walkway across the bridge is glass, and no part of the 700 foot long bridge touches the river. Plus there are feral cats and a nifty box that makes animal sounds!

5. The Cascade Theatre, an Art Deco movie palace which opened in 1935, was capable of seating over 20% of Redding's population of the time. Today, it is a multiuse performing arts center. It is listed on the National Register of Historical Places. It was the city's first air conditioned public building, and originally seated 1,348 people.

-- Mindy