A century-old train depot in Rancho Cordova is set to become one of the busiest stops on this year's Sacramento Open Studios tour, with the Mills Station Arts & Culture Center hosting a full weekend of exhibitions, live music and community events from September 18 through September 20.
The celebration kicks off Friday, September 18, with a launch party featuring live music from FBI Band, a food truck and a chance to meet 17 participating artists showing work at the venue, according to the Mountain Democrat. The tour continues Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, with free parking available for visitors. Artists slated to appear include Allyson Gunnell, Carol Clark, Carole Rossi, Celeste Budd, Cheryl Gleason, Judy Naylor, Kim Brownell, Ron Hall, Sheri Burrill Ely, Susan Pine, Christine Kerr, Deborah Kelly, Elaine Schaefer-Hudson, Erin O'Brien, Johyne Geran, Tana Smith, and Sid and Donine Wellman.
The MACC's role this year is just one stop within a much larger regional event. Sacramento Open Studios, organized by the Verge Center for the Arts, spans Sacramento and Yolo counties and draws roughly 30,000 visitors and more than 200 participating artists each year, making it the region's largest public visual arts event. Verge released its official 2026 Sac Open Studios Guide on Thursday, publicly kicking off preparations for the September tour, which includes maps, artist directory listings and demonstration schedules.
A Depot's Long Road to Becoming an Art Hub
The building hosting this year's festivities has its own layered history. Built in 1911 as a gathering spot for local farmers and travelers, the Mills Station structure has served over the decades as a post office, gas station, fire station, tavern and dance hall, according to the Rancho Cordova Independent. It was moved twice, including a 1998 relocation orchestrated by local transit and city leaders to save it from demolition during light rail construction, and its downstairs level sat largely unused for two decades before its eventual transformation.
That transformation came in February 2018, when the MACC officially opened following an $883,000 interior renovation funded through Rancho Cordova's Community Enhancement Fund. The project was a joint effort between the City of Rancho Cordova, Sacramento Regional Transit, Sacramento County and the Cordova Community Council, per SacRT. SacRT owns the land and building, while the city leases it to run public cultural programming — meaning the venue now marks more than eight years as a gathering place for artists and the broader community.
Curator Cheryl Gleason's Vision for the Space
Cheryl Gleason has served as the MACC's Art Director and Curator since it opened in 2018, and she also leads Rancho Cordova Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on developing visual arts across the city, according to Inside Sacramento. Gleason oversees the venue's monthly exhibits, artist workshops, lectures and musical events, and through Rancho Cordova Arts' annual Micro-Masterpieces fundraiser, the group has raised money for thousands of dollars worth of art supplies for local public school students and teachers.
The MACC's programming regularly extends beyond regional artists. In 2023, the center was the sole venue in California selected to exhibit “Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II,” a national traveling exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution, as reported by CapRadio. That exhibit explored Executive Order 9066 through personal artifacts, photographs and firsthand accounts from internment camp survivors, underscoring the center's capacity to bring nationally recognized institutions into a suburban transit hub.
Transit Access in a Car-Dependent City
The MACC sits directly at SacRT's Mather Field/Mills station on the Gold Line, which connects downtown Sacramento through Rancho Cordova to Historic Folsom. That accessibility stands out in a city where a 2025 transportation report found that 71.4% of commuters drive while just 2% use public transit, according to SacRT. For Open Studios visitors coming from outside Rancho Cordova, the light rail stop offers a direct route to the weekend's festivities.
Rancho Cordova is home to more than 80,000 residents who speak upwards of 90 different languages, a demographic profile that local arts organizers say shapes their push for culturally diverse, free public programming, per the Gold Country Visitors Association. City leaders have pointed to that growth as part of the reasoning behind expanding cultural offerings in a rapidly changing suburban community.
This year's Sacramento Open Studios also marks a milestone for the broader program, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in September 2025 with an extended preview exhibition at Verge Center for the Arts. That puts the September 2026 tour in its 21st year, continuing a two-decade expansion across Sacramento and Yolo counties. Visitors heading to the MACC this fall will get the chance to meet artists in person, learn about their creative processes and buy original artwork directly from them — all inside a building that has spent more than a century finding new ways to serve its community.
