Sacramento's New City Historian Wants to Make History Actually Matter

When Ty Smith took the reins as Sacramento’s new City Historian on June 1, he didn’t come with a dusty academic agenda. Instead, he brought something far more radical: the belief that history isn’t about collecting neat moments in a museum case—it’s about connecting people to their own stories and helping them imagine better futures.

Now three weeks into the role, Smith is already digging into the archives at the Center for Sacramento History with a clear mission. He oversees the city’s sprawling collection spanning from the gold rush to today, but his real focus is cracking open those archives and inviting the community inside.“The work of a public historian, it’s less about being like a time traveler—trying to capture neat moments in the past—and more about finding ways to connect the dots to connect people to their histories to help people imagine their futures through understanding our collective past,”he said.“So I plan to be pretty innovative in my approach, pretty community responsive.”

The shift matters. For years, the Center has operated partly as a research facility—important work, sure, but one that didn’t necessarily reach beyond historians and academics. Smith wants to flip that equation. He sees himself as a community resource who can help uncover stories buried in the stacks and empower others to do the same.“I see a neat relationship between the past, present, and therefore the future in a way that pivots from history, but is really about empowering our lives,”he said.

Smith’s background explains the philosophy. Born in Salinas and bouncing around California his whole life, he found his calling in community college through mentors who were anthropologists and historians. After a stint as a seasonal guide at Hearst Castle—his entry point into California State Parks—he eventually became director of the California State Railroad Museum and Old Sacramento State Historic Park. That experience shaped how he thinks about history: as something alive, connected to how people live right now.

He’s already deep into research on Nathaniel Colley, Sacramento’s first Black attorney, who arrived in 1948 unable to find work at any law firm and so opened his own instead. Colley became a civil rights leader championing public housing, and his story sits at the intersection of Sacramento’s boom years and the civil rights movement. Smith is equally fascinated by Tower Records founder Russ Solomon—another Sacramento original whose legacy outlived the brick-and-mortar stores themselves.“Our local history here is world history, and that goes well beyond the Gold Rush,”he said.

Megan Van Voorhis, the director of Convention and Cultural Services, calls Smith the clear winner for the role—someone who brings both deep experience and bold vision for what community engagement with history could look like. The question now is whether Sacramento’s residents will show up. If Smith pulls it off, the city could finally see its own past not as trivia to be preserved, but as a mirror for understanding who we are and who we might become.