On Hwy-99, 74 miles South of Sacramento. Founded in 1872, Modesto was intended to bear the name of William C. Ralston, a San Francisco banker. Ralston’s graceful decline of the offer resulted in the town instead being named Modesto, the Spanish word for modest. Famous Modestons include champion swimmer Mark Spitz and film director George Lucas, who used the town as the inspiration for his celebration of small-town America, American Graffiti. Each June, Modesto stages the Graffiti U.S.A. Festival, a very well-supported classic car show with many participants – and spectators – decked out in early-1960s regalia.

An earlier local hero was Robert McHenry, a successful wheat farmer who subsequently became head of the Modesto bank and a pillar of the community. The Italianate McHenry Mansion (www.mchenrymansion.org), 906 15th Street, in which McHenry and his family lived from 1883, has been extensively restored to its Victorian style (it suffered considerably after being converted to apartments during the 1920s). A short walk away, a Greek Revival building was financed by the McHenry family in 1912 as a home for the town library. Subsequently, the library gave way to the McHenry Museum (www.mchenrymuseum.org), 1402 I Street, where several rooms store oddments from, and recreate scenes of, early Modesto life.

Other echoes of the past are provided by the murals which decorate the Depression-era El Viejo Post Office, 1125 I Street, and the 1912 Modesto Arch, above the corner of 9th and I Streets, which welcomes visitors to the town with the promise of ‘Water Wealth Contentment Health.’