By the time the calendar opened on 1864, Emperor Norton was a well-known presence in San Francisco, as well in Oakland and Berkeley. And, he had begun making excursions to Sacramento.

But, it appears that the Emperor had yet to set foot in outposts of his Empire further afield.

Between mid February and mid March 1864, he remedied this with two royal junkets in quick succession — the first, to Marysville and Oroville; the second, to Petaluma.

Of course, the newspapers both at home and “abroad” were only too happy to cover these visits.

Read on for the whole story — and for rarely seen photographs of a couple of the hotels where Emperor Norton stayed when he visited these places.