Southside Park is a neighborhood in Sacramento, California, located immediately south of Downtown Sacramento. Its official borders are R Street to the north, W-X Freeway to the south, I-5 to the west, and 12th Street to the east. Southside Park is part of the City of Sacramento's South Side Historic District. A large park with a natural pond sits at the center of the community. The park hosts several annual celebrations and the popular Sunday Farmers Market is held all year south of the park under the overpass at W-X Streets. History Native inhabitants The area was originally inhabited by the Valley Nisenan people for several thousand years. What is now Southside Park Lake was then a larger marshy pond that extended further south toward what is now Broadway and further north toward R Street. Nearby high ground would have been their preferred sites for their towns, which were scattered throughout. One of the largest ones, Sama, was a little south of here and was home to several hundred or perhaps over 1000 people. It was also their southernmost town; further south was Miwok land. The Nisenan were decimated (though not eliminated) by new diseases and hostility from the influx of outsiders in the 1800s. Settlement The area around what is now the park is a natural low spot (the lowest in what is now the Central City) and was subject to seasonal flooding. As such, development in the growing city of Sacramento was at first confined to north of the R Street levee, and a sewage canal ran along 6th Street south of R starting in 1864. Later, construction of a levee at Y Street (now Broadway) made it possible to build south of R Street, and the neighborhood began to be established around the turn of the 20th century. Many residents worked at the nearby railyards, canneries, and lumberyards. The population included Portuguese, Japanese, Italians, Slavs, Africans, and others; non-whites were not allowed to live in certain other parts of the city until the late 1960s. In fact, the Fong Mansion across from the park's playground at 6th & U was built in 1936 by a Chinese diplomat who was not allowed to build where he originally wanted to in East Sacramento. Southside Park The park was created by the city about 100 years ago, at the urging of members of Southside Improvement Club, an organization of local