Benicia highlight
Historic waterfront
Benicia's First Street waterfront district sits on the Carquinez Strait, anchored by the restored Benicia Arsenal complex that operated as a major military installation for more than a century.
The Benicia Arsenal was established in 1851 as the primary U.S. Army Ordnance facility for the West Coast, commanding a position on the water with the strategic advantage of deepwater access to supply Union forces. In the decades that followed, the Arsenal grew into a sprawling installation where ordnance was stockpiled, weapons were manufactured and tested, and the first cargo of supplies was dispatched for what would become the Pacific War effort. The complex operated continuously until it closed in 1964, having witnessed nearly every major American military campaign of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Today the Arsenal's restored historic buildings house the Museum of History Benicia and artist studios and galleries. The waterfront setting remains a centerpiece of the city: the Old Town district with galleries, restaurants, and shops stretches along First Street, where foot traffic moves between the working waterfront and the open plazas. The Benicia Peddler's Fair, one of Northern California's largest street fairs, has drawn crowds to this waterfront every spring and fall since 1963.
A waterfront neighborhood like this—where commerce, history, and community life converge—asks the same questions of families that a life insurance policy answers: what happens to the people who depend on you, to the business you built, to the home you're paying for. A term policy sized to cover those obligations during the earning years is the practical expression of that attachment to place.