The first outsiders to see the river were probably the members of a Spanish colonial-exploratory venture to Northern California in 1772, led by Captain Pedro Fages.
The group ascended a mountain, likely in the hills north of Suisun Bay, and found themselves looking down at the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.
However, due to their vantage point, neither Fages nor any of his men saw the Sacramento clearly.
They assumed that the San Joaquin, coming from the south, was the largest of the merging rivers they saw.
In 1808, explorer Gabriel Moraga, on a journey to find suitable sites for the construction of missions, became the first foreigner to see the river clearly.
Judging its huge breadth and power he named it Rio de los Sacramentos, or "River of the Blessed Sacrament".
In the following years, two more Spanish expeditions traversed the lower part of the river, the last one in 1817.

The next visitors were Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fur trappers exploring southwards from the disputed Oregon Country, starting in the 1820s.
The first organized expedition, led by Peter Skene Ogden, arrived in the area of Mount Shasta in 1826.
By this time, California was under the control of Mexico, although few Mexican settlers had come to what would later become the state, mostly settling in the small pueblos and ranchos along the south and central coast.
The HBC mountain men created the Siskiyou Trail out of several Native American paths that ran through the mountains between Oregon's Willamette Valley and the northern part of the Sacramento Valley.
In the years to come, this path, which eventually extended from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon following parts of the Sacramento, Willamette, Klamath, Rogue, and other rivers would become an important trade and travel route.
The first outsiders to see the river were probably the members of a Spanish colonial-exploratory venture to Northern California in 1772, led by Captain Pedro Fages. The group ascended a mountain, likely in the hills north of Suisun Bay, and found themselves looking down at the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. However, due to their vantage point, neither Fages nor any of his men saw the Sacramento clearly. They assumed that the San Joaquin, coming from the south, was the largest of the merging rivers they saw. In 1808, explorer Gabriel Moraga, on a journey to find suitable sites for the construction of missions, became the first foreigner to see the river clearly. Judging its huge breadth and power he named it Rio de los Sacramentos, or "River of the Blessed Sacrament". In the following years, two more Spanish expeditions traversed the lower part of the river, the last one in 1817.
The next visitors were Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fur trappers exploring southwards from the disputed Oregon Country, starting in the 1820s. The first organized expedition, led by Peter Skene Ogden, arrived in the area of Mount Shasta in 1826. By this time, California was under the control of Mexico, although few Mexican settlers had come to what would later become the state, mostly settling in the small pueblos and ranchos along the south and central coast. The HBC mountain men created the Siskiyou Trail out of several Native American paths that ran through the mountains between Oregon's Willamette Valley and the northern part of the Sacramento Valley. In the years to come, this path, which eventually extended from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon following parts of the Sacramento, Willamette, Klamath, Rogue, and other rivers would become an important trade and travel route.
Sacramento River