Dixon, a farm town on the eastern edge of Solano County, was settled in the early 1860s and has grown to only 17,000 population since it was incorporated in 1868. The main street is called “Main Street.” Behind a few old Victorian residences and more than a few clapboard shacks are many of the same kinds of “ranch” houses built mostly since World War II that are found all over the Central Valley. St. Peter’s Church and the huge grain elevator are probably the town’s most obvious landmarks. In 1858 the Methodist Church was established in Silveyville and a church house was built alongside the California Pacific Railroad, but when Dixon became a town the church building was moved to Dixon on property bought for one dollar. If the building ever had a steeple, it was left behind in Silveyville. Trains have long since ceased their service to Dixon, so the train depot has become the Chamber of Commerce. Amtrak offers frequent daily runs between San Francisco (Emeryville) and Sacramento, but Dixon’s nearest stop on the run is Davis, seven miles to the East.
When I was a boy growing up in Live Oak, a town about the same size as Dixon, I had an altogether wrong notion about what went on in the IOOF Hall. I thought it was odd that the dimensions of the hall gave the building it’s name. I thought it was the one-hundred-foot hall. I didn’t learn until I was grown that it was the meeting place of the International Order of Odd Fellows.
Dixon, a farm town on the eastern edge of Solano County, was settled in the early 1860s and has grown to only 17,000 population since it was incorporated in 1868. The main street is called “Main Street.” Behind a few old Victorian residences and more than a few clapboard shacks are many of the same kinds of “ranch” houses built mostly since World War II that are found all over the Central Valley. St. Peter’s Church and the huge grain elevator are probably the town’s most obvious landmarks. In 1858 the Methodist Church was established in Silveyville and a church house was built alongside the California Pacific Railroad, but when Dixon became a town the church building was moved to Dixon on property bought for one dollar. If the building ever had a steeple, it was left behind in Silveyville. Trains have long since ceased their service to Dixon, so the train depot has become the Chamber of Commerce. Amtrak offers frequent daily runs between San Francisco (Emeryville) and Sacramento, but Dixon’s nearest stop on the run is Davis, seven miles to the East.
When I was a boy growing up in Live Oak, a town about the same size as Dixon, I had an altogether wrong notion about what went on in the IOOF Hall. I thought it was odd that the dimensions of the hall gave the building it’s name. I thought it was the one-hundred-foot hall. I didn’t learn until I was grown that it was the meeting place of the International Order of Odd Fellows. 
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