by Carmel Barry-Schweyer (Author), Alycia S. Alvarez (Author)
Rocklin is a town built on and named for granite rock. Forty-niners headed for Placer County gold fields noticed gleaming boulders scattered among the oak and pine, but a decade passed before the first Rocklin quarry supplied granite blocks to build the state capitol in Sacramento. By 1910 there were 22 quarries chiseling stone to build, among many, the United States Mint and city hall in San Francisco, Oakland's civic auditorium, the San Joaquin, Solano, and Placer County courthouses, and Rocklin's own city hall after it incorporated in 1893. The quarries and the Central Pacific Railroad, which built a roundhouse in Rocklin in 1866, attracted a large number of Finns, who at one time made up a majority of Rocklin residents. But no matter what their point of origin, Rockliners loved sports, forming baseball teams and frequenting a racetrack where quarry owners ran horses with names like Golden State, Moko Boy, and Shamrock.