Free guided walking tours are small groups led by trained guides who are able to explain the architectural features and history of stops on the tour. Tours pass by homes but do not allow access. To see private residence interiors purchase tickets for the Open Homes Tour.
Information is available at the Stroll Heritage Plaza Information Booth
Each stroll lasts approximately 45 – 60 minutes. All terrain is flat on city sidewalks. Wear comfortable shoes and bring your camera. Stroll walking tours start at times and locations noted below.
2024 Stroll Walking Tours
WHAT’S THAT HOUSE STYLE? New Tour
Woodland is renowned for its beautifully restored historic houses built in a wide array of styles encompassing 160 years of history. Residents from yesteryear crafted a beautiful small town carved out of an oak forest, creating attractive tree-lined neighborhoods and charming houses. Beginning in the 1960s, ambitious young preservationists seeking an authentic sense of place began renovating these unique homes, big and small, with a few dollars, frequent trips to Cranston’s Hardware, and the sweat of their brow. This “early bird” tour, filled with birdsong from Woodland’s tall and shady urban forest, will stroll from First Street down Pendegast and over to Mid Century Modern neighborhoods. We will observe changes in housing styles precipitated by architectural innovation, historical trends, lifestyle changes, and technological. Learn the basics of Victorian, Shingle, Prairie, Colonial Revival, Mission, Craftsman, Bungalow, Ranch, and other styles. See up close why Woodland is the “Jewel of the Valley” and a “City of Trees and Architecture.”
8 AM tour starts at 745 First Street (near Craig Street)
Docent: David Wilkinson, Woodland Historian and Author
South Second & Third Street Loop: 140 years of Architecture and History
New Tour
Historic Woodland isn’t just populated with impressive Victorians. Within a few blocks, strollers will experience a microcosm of Woodland housing development spanning more than a century. The stroll begins at a lovely Arts & Crafts Gothic Revival Church and later on we view a rare Gothic Revival home from the 1870s. Scattered throughout this tour are houses of diverse styles, shapes, and sizes, including Victorians, and many from the 20s and 30s, including Craftsman, Spanish eclectic, and many bungalows, one built from a Sear’s kit and another built in 2013. Interspersed are mid-century apartments built to address Woodland’s need for affordable housing. Join historian and neighborhood resident Jim Lapsley for a discovery tour as he seeks out new and interesting observations and insights about this charming and diverse neighborhood he calls home.
9 AM Tour starts at S/E corner of Second & Lincoln streets in front of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
Docent: Jim Lapsley, Historian
COLLEGE STREET PIONEERS AND PRESERVATIONISTS
College Street has a variety of upscale house styles, including Victorian-era Italianates, Queen Annes, Craftsman Bungalows, and the first Modernist home built in Woodland in 1912. Join docent Barbara Graham, who has intimately studied this neighborhood over the course of leading this captivating walking tour for many years, for a step back in time to experience Woodland’s formative years. Learn about these upscale, renovated houses and who lived in them during the early days of Woodland. From a United States Congressman, a bank president, an author and a Women’s Christian Temperance activist, College Street was home to incredibly interesting and influential people.
8:30 AM Tour starts at S/E corner of College & Lincoln streets (historic Woodland Christian Church)
Docent: Barbara Graham, Historian
FABULOUS FIRST STREET’S ARCHITECTURAL TREASURES: SECTIONS 1, 2 & 3
Newly added neighborhoods
Richly diverse with a wide array of Victorians, including the California State Landmark Gable Mansion, First Street contains a stunning variety of well-preserved architecture, with many different styles spanning the period 1860 to the present, epitomizing Woodland’s extraordinary cultural heritage. Many homes set along this picturesque tree-canopied street have been lovingly restored over the last 50 years, notably the Victorian at 638 First Street, winner of a Great American Home Awards Grand Prize for restoration work.
There are three houses on First Street—all very different– designed by the renowned Berkeley architect, John Hudson Thomas, including the unique Prairie style house in the 700 block, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Chicago-area houses.
The 900 block, added to the Stroll this year, is lined with immaculate houses in several styles from the early 1900s, including Woodland’s first brown-shingled Craftsman house built in 1908, which influenced many others. The lovely Tudor Revival house at 901 First and the classic Craftsman house surrounded by a low cobblestone wall at 920 First Street are open for viewing this year (ticketed). Stroll along this scenic neighborhood, then come back and go inside these two historic houses.
This exceptional tour captures Woodland’s extraordinary social and economic history embodied by its renowned architecture.
Note: First Street will be divided into three contiguous sections, allowing strollers to walk specific sections or the entire street.
Part 1– 9:00 AM Tour starts at corner of First and Lincoln.
Docent: Chris Holt, Architect, Artist, and Woodland Planning Commissioner
Part 2—10:15 AM Tour starts at First and Cross streets in front of Gable Mansion
Docent: Mary Aulman, Yolo County Historical Society & Stroll Committee
Part 3—11:15 AM Tour starts at First and Pendegast streets.
Docents: Allison Brown, Stroll Board Chairman, and Tim Brown, architect and Stroll Board member.
POST-VICTORIAN CRAFTSMANSHIP AND GARDENS: PENDEGAST and ELM STREET TOUR
New Tour
This shady tour winds its way along Pendegast Street lined with beautiful houses from the early 1900s. There are lovely gardens and ancient oaks, representative of Woodland from a century ago. Architect Chris Campbell has assisted many Woodland historic homeowners with renovating their houses, including her own house within this neighborhood, and has unique stories to share. Stroll by a historic school site that began with Oak Street School in 1889 and continues today as Dingle School, originally built in 1924 as Woodland Grammar School. An ancient oak on campus is now designated a city landmark. There is a colorful mural by renowned artist, Malaquias Montoya and his UC Davis students, on the multipurpose building. Dingle’s landscape will get a big makeover in 2025 through the Cool Schools Yolo project adding lots more trees, shade, and outdoor learning areas, which will be explained on this tour. The Dingle neighborhood features many fine examples of bungalows from the 1910-20 period. Strollers will also visit City Park, Woodland’s oldest public park c1910, and enjoy the shade and beauty of the valley oak planted in 1916 by the Woodland Shakespeare Club, California’s oldest continuous women’s literature club, founded in 1885.
10 AM Tour starts at N/W corner of Pendegast and College streets.
Docent: Chris Campbell, Architect
BARNS, ALLEYS, OAKS AND HIDDEN SURPRISES
This fun tour brings hidden history alive for people of all ages. The stroll starts at Dog Gone Alley behind the carefully recreated depot where Woodlanders once boarded electric trains that whisked them to downtown Sacramento. Back-alley strollers will discover some of Woodland’s seldom-seen spots, including barns and carriage houses from horse-and-buggy days, a real covered bridge, and then follow the route of a major north state railroad that steamed through Woodland in the 1870s. Throughout the tour, you will walk in the shade of native valley oaks and other trees planted by families in bygone days.
10 AM Tour starts at corner of Second Street and Dog Gone Alley (just south of Main Street)
Docent: Mark Aulman, Woodland Tree Foundation
BEAMER PARK: AN EARLY 20TH CENTURY “RESIDENTIAL PARK” CREATED BY A MASTER LANDSCAPE ENGINEER
Shortly before World War I, Bay Area developer, Hewitt Davenport, subdivided the old Richard and Rebecca Beamer homestead and hired a young, talented landscape architect, Mark Daniels, to design something different for Woodland: an upscale, master planned “residential park” with curved streets and round-about with fountain, an architectural gateway, a public park-and pricey home lots set among ancient valley oak trees. Daniels’ credentials include designing the 17-Mile Drive in Monterey and Forest Hill and Seacliff posh neighborhoods in San Francisco. A private train was chartered from Sacramento to promote the grand opening of “Beamer’s Woodland Park” in June 1914. The complete build out of the Park took more than 40 years, interrupted by WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII, and accounts for the broad range of housing styles. Several talented builders left their mark on Beamer Park, including William Fait and Joseph Motroni, whose works will be highlighted on this tour. Recent improvements to the public park and tree-scape will also be discussed.
10:30 AM Tour starts at the Beamer Arches at Third & Beamer streets
Docent: Jim Bohon
NORTH SECOND STREET: ELECTRIC RAILROAD HISTORY, AN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE COURTHOUSE AND FINELY CRAFTED HOUSES
NEW TOUR
While Woodland’s wealthy business and professional classes were building their large houses south of Main Street, working class people were being housed in a creative mix of folk Victorian cottages, bungalows and period revival houses to the north. This cross-sectional tour begins at the Electric Train Depot at Main/Second streets and heads north across Heritage Plaza (created out of a section of Second Street) past the handsome Yolo County Administration Building (c1984, which also required removing part of Second Street) and the impressive Yolo County Courthouse (c1917) to residential neighborhoods filled with a variety of classic smaller houses, many lovingly restored or in process. Docent Will Anderson has spent several years restoring his Craftsman Bungalow on Second Street and will share stories of his experiences along the way.
9:30 AM Tour starts at S/W corner of Main and Second streets (across from Heritage Plaza)
Docent: Will Anderson, Home Restorer, Neighborhood Resident
Downtown Tour
DOWNTOWN WOODLAND’S SPANISH RENAISSANCE c1900-1930
New Tour
Architecture has been called “visible history.” Within Downtown Woodland is a microcosm of American history manifested in its buildings. Strolling Downtown is living and breathing history. During the 19th century Woodland looked very Victorian, but that began to change significantly after the Chicago World’s Fair (1893) which introduced Americans to the Spanish Mission building tradition which inspired the Fair’s “California Building”, experienced by multitudes of tourists and architects. The “Mission” style came about as California was gaining economic strength and its people began to self-consciously review its architectural past, searching for appropriate models from which to develop an indigenous regional style. Gradually, red tile roofs, scalloped-shaped gables, and smooth plaster buildings with arches, mimicking adobe, began to appear in Woodland. Corner Drug was transformed from a Victorian to a Mission style building, followed by beloved architect-designed buildings such as the Woodland Public Library (1905), Odd Fellows Hall (1905), Northern Electric Train Depot (1912, then recreatedin 1986), Cranston’s Hardware (1914), Daily Democrat Building (1925), Kraft Bros. Mortuary Chapel (1927), Hotel Woodland (1928), City Hall (1932), and the Post Office (1936), among prominent Downtown landmarks. Join historian David Wilkinson and explore the riches and romance of Woodland’s Hispanic-inspired buildings, beginning at the Hotel Woodland, with a stop at the Woodland Public Library, followed by a short stroll back to Main Street.
10:30 AM Tour begins in front of the Hotel Woodland, Main & College streets
Docent: David Wilkinson, Woodland historian and author