Chico, California, is a mid-sized city in the northern Sacramento Valley, where college life, agriculture, and old oaks press up against each other in the same flat grid of streets.
It's not the kind of place people describe in extremes. But when you start looking closely, the details don't quite line up with the calm surface.
The facts in this article aren't about milestones or slogans.
They're the parts of the city that feel slightly off, slightly too specific to explain away: unusual city laws, a city pool made from a creek, a massive toy locked in a storeroom, an old riot, a burned mansion.
Some are local trivia, others are harder to categorize. They're strange in the way real places can be when no one's trying to make them look good.
A bit of Chico once nearly became California's capital
During the early Cold War, residents tested Operation Chico, a civil-defense drill simulating Sacramento's evacuation, by designating Chico as the provisional state capital.
Though never used in practice, the concept underscores Chico's strategic thinking during a time of national tension.
That plan remains in the municipal code, alongside Chico's 1983 "nuclear‑free zone" ordinance.
No enforcement ever occurred, but the measure survives largely as a symbolic relic of Cold War-era activism and citywide idealism.
The city code bans something no one has ever brought here
In 1983, Chico passed a municipal ordinance declaring itself a "nuclear-free zone." It's still listed in Chapter 9.20 of the city code, and technically prohibits the production, storage, testing, or transport of nuclear weapons and related systems.
Dozens of cities enacted similar bans in the early 1980s as symbolic protests against federal defense policies.
Chico's version never led to any known enforcement, but it remains legally active.
The law has resurfaced occasionally when residents discuss old legislation or odd city trivia.
It sits among other outdated or hyper-specific laws still on the books, including ones about cesspools and animal hides.
One of the first hijackings in U.S. history happened here
On July 31, 1961, Chico Municipal Airport became the site of the first recorded airplane hijacking on U.S. soil.
A man forced a plane to land and wounded two people before being overpowered.
The incident shook national aviation safety standards at the time and remains a lesser-known chapter in Chico's history.
Though commercial flights eventually left the airport, the memory of that early hijacking lingers among local historians.
It has been recounted in national security timelines.
A tree so large it became furniture for City Hall
The Hooker Oak once stood in Bidwell Park and was believed to be the largest valley oak ever recorded.
It was over 100 feet tall with limbs spreading nearly 140 feet.
The tree appeared in the 1938 Errol Flynn film The Adventures of Robin Hood, and became a local landmark until it collapsed in 1977.
Instead of removing it completely, the city preserved and distributed its wood for symbolic use.
The mayor's gavel was carved from its trunk, benches at City Hall contain planks from its limbs, and parts of the tree were even embedded in the ceremonial mace at Chico State.
You can swim in the creek without ever leaving the city
Sycamore Pool, in Lower Bidwell Park, was built directly into Big Chico Creek in 1923.
The city laid concrete walls and a divider into the streambed to form a rectangular swimming area that still follows the creek's natural current.
During hot months, it fills with families, teenagers, and lap swimmers, and lifeguards are posted on both sides.
Because it's a natural body of water, swimmers often share space with fish or floating leaves.
The pool is drained and cleaned before every summer season, but otherwise remains in constant flow.
Few cities in the U.S. operate a public pool quite like it.
Throwing hay into a cesspool needs city permission
Chico's municipal code includes a statute requiring a permit to throw hay (or straw, glass, dirt, branches, butcher's offal, etc.) into a cesspool or sewer hole.
That's among the oddest of several local laws still in force.
Others ban owning a smelly animal hide, sidewalk bowling, and even children playing on sidewalks.
These regulations date from early 20th-century ordinances and remain technically active despite never being enforced.
The hay‑into‑cesspool rule has no practical use today.
Still, it survives in the city code as a curious legal footnote that Chicoans occasionally quote for trivia nights.
Stargazers built a telescope in the hills above town
Founded in 2001 and managed by the Kiwanis Club of Greater Chico, the Chico Community Observatory sits in Upper Bidwell Park.
It features a 14‑inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, roped off for public stargazing events.
Admission is free, and the facility runs on volunteer support.
The observatory is named for astronomer Anita Ingrao, who taught children about astronomy and even visited the White House in 2009 as part of a NASA science event.
Today, it remains one of the few U.S. town‑run observatories open to casual visitors.
A walnut variety shares the city's name
The "Chico walnut" is a named cultivar developed in the Chico area and prized for its size and flavor.
Almonds dominate the orchards today, but decades ago, walnuts were king.
California State University, Chico researchers contributed to propagating walnut varieties like "Chico," which spread throughout the Sacramento Valley.
While almond blooms draw spring crowds now, the walnut trees remain a quieter legacy of agricultural innovation tied to the city.
A gas balloon record took off here in 1972
In October 1972, Chico set a high-altitude balloon milestone when an unmanned gas balloon launched nearby reached 170,000 feet (51.8 km) above Earth, reaching the stratosphere.
That record stood for decades as one of the highest flights by such a balloon.
Though the mission was crewless and scientific, the launch earned Chico a spot in aeronautical record books.
Top Gun hidden in plain sight above Chico
The final aerial scenes of Top Gun: Maverick were secretly filmed in the foothills near Chico in July 2019.
Production teams staged mock dogfights using L‑39 jets and CGI, with Chico Municipal Airport serving as a covert base.
The location was kept under wraps until filming concluded; locals only saw unusual military-style aircraft and closed roads.
Though the city isn't mentioned in the credits, Chico's landscape and airfield briefly became Hollywood's real-world cockpit.
A toy shop keeps something enormous in the back room
Inside Bird in Hand, a downtown gift store, there's a wooden yo-yo taller than most people.
Built in 1982 by Tom Kuhn and weighing over 250 pounds, it was certified as the world's largest working yo-yo and once hung from a crane in Golden Gate Park to prove it functioned.
The store also houses the National Yo-Yo Museum, where shelves are lined with vintage models, tournament trophies, and customized pieces from around the world.
The museum is free and open year-round, and every Saturday, the Chico Yo-Yo Club meets here to practice tricks.
Some of the country's top players, including world champion Gentry Stein, have roots in that club.
A college party turned into a riot, and then a ten-year ban
In 1987, what began as Chico State's annual Pioneer Days celebration turned chaotic.
Thousands of students and visitors packed into downtown following Playboy Magazine's "top party school" ranking, and by nightfall, cars were overturned, fires were set, and police used riot gear to disperse crowds.
The university and city canceled the event the next year. For nearly a decade, Pioneer Days disappeared from the calendar.
In the late 1990s, organizers quietly revived it under different names, and eventually returned to the original title.
The event still happens each spring, though it now looks more like a small-town fair than a college blowout.
A fire destroyed the Bidwell Mansion, and its arsonist must pay $37 million
On December 11, 2024, Chico's Bidwell Mansion, built in 1868 and listed as a California Historical Landmark, was destroyed in an arson fire set during a $2.3 million renovation.
In March 2025, Kevin Andrew Carlson, age 30, was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay $37.4 million in restitution to California State Parks.
Investigators used surveillance video, gas station receipts, and license plate data to connect him to the scene.
Carlson had previously expressed anti-colonial views related to the Bidwells' role in displacing the Mechoopda people.