Vacaville is a city located in Solano County, California, between Sacramento and San Francisco. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 88,625. The City was founded in 1852 by William McDaniel and named after Juan Manuel Vaca, who had received a substantial land grant from Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. The city was a Pony Express stop and was home to many large produce companies and local farms which flourished due to the Vaca Valley's rich soil, including the now defunct Basic Vegetable Products Co. (Onion Factory) and The Nut Tree.

Today the city is known for its retail shopping, its annual Vacaville Fiesta Days and Onion Festival, and its large concentration of biotechnology operations, including Genentech. Other nearby cities include Fairfield, Napa, Dixon, Suisun City and Winters. It is about 18 minutes away from the University of California, Davis. The unincorporated Allendale and Elmira are generally considered to be part of Vacaville.

While Vacaville has traditionally been strongly influenced by the neighboring Travis Air Force Base, the largest employer is the State Prison. Vacaville is also a growing Biotechnology/Pharmaceutical "hub" with facilities operated by Large Scale Biology Corporation, Genentech, ALZA Corporation, Chiron Corporation, and Durect Corporation.

The city was home to the Solano Steelheads of the now-defunct Western Baseball League. It is now home to the Solano Thunderbirds of the California Collegiate League (CCL).

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Vacaville, California".