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    Napa
    Napa
    Napa
    Ebook199 pages44 minutes

    Napa

    By The Napa Valley Museum and Lin Weber

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    About this ebook

    The name "Napa" may come from "Napato," a clan of the Wintun Indians who once lived along a river that flows into San Francisco Bay. In the 1850s, miners sought refuge in the young city that grew up by the Napa River, living in tents along its main street. Later they and other newcomers found work at businesses and nearby ranches while Napa City flourished as goods and produce from all over the valley were loaded onto steamers bound for San Francisco. Shortening its name in 1900, Napa continued to provide housing and shops, utilities and transportation for a growing agricultural center, and it shared the valley's economic hard times through Prohibition and the Great Depression.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439630860
    Napa
    Author

    The Napa Valley Museum

    Award-winning author Lin Weber has previously written another Arcadia book, Napa Valley Wine Country, and three other histories of the valley. A Napa resident for more than 30 years, she has searched the photographic archives of the Napa Valley Museum, the Napa County Historical Society, and many private collections to provide these fine images, small portholes overlooking the vast currents of time that continue to shape Napa.

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      Book preview

      Napa - The Napa Valley Museum

      grapes.

      INTRODUCTION

      Change has often been a difficult process for the Napa Valley. One of the most significant changes shaping the region’s unique geography was the movement of three enormous geological (tectonic) plates, which had been inching their way up the coast for millions of years. The area where these three plates joined was prone to violent geologic activity: earthquakes, rising magma, and peppering from actual volcanoes, where magma erupted through the surface and spilled out as lava. About 6 million years ago, this moving triple juncture passed directly under the Napa Valley, giving rise to the Sonoma Volcanics, intrusive and sometimes explosive upwellings located on both sides of the valley. The massive formation of basalt just south of the city of Napa is one remnant of that era. The palisades above the Stag’s Leap District near the Yountville/Napa border are another, and there are many more.

      Horrific as it was, the age of volcanoes ultimately benefited the Napa Valley. Volcanism was responsible for the creation of deposits of marketable metals like mercury and silver, and architects of the 19th century used volcanic rock to construct fine buildings and bridges. The dramatic beauty of the terrain and the presence of hot and mineral-rich springs have drawn tourists. Most importantly, the lava and volcanic ash broke down to form soil ideal for growing wine grapes. The resulting wine industry has brought the valley fame and great wealth.

      Human beings first came to the Napa Valley at least 6,000 years ago. Ancient spear points and arrowheads of various sizes and shapes are evidence of successions of early peoples passing through or making this place their home. A group known today as the Wappo populated the general region, but fell victim to change when other ancient peoples began to migrate into the area. One, the Wintun, encroached on the Wappos’ southern hunting places and made permanent encampments around what is now the city of Napa. The Wappo withdrew to the north, unhappy and disposed to battle.

      Change would come again in 1823, when soldiers of the newly created country of Mexico entered the valley from the southwest to explore the lands they had inherited when they broke away from Spain. They saw great herds of elk and a fearsome number of bears, but the Wintun hid from them. The natives could not hide, however, from the diseases that traveled with the Europeans. In less than a generation, most of these Native Americans—Wintun and Wappo alike—had perished or were forcibly relocated.

      Under General Mariano Vallejo, the Mexicans formed a small pueblo and ran cattle in southern Napa Valley, but they, too, would be victims of change, for Americans had started to find their way across the High Sierras. An American mountain man named George Yount received a grant of land in what would become Yountville, near the Wappo/Wintun boundary. Other Americans would follow, lured by the glint of gold.

      Gold Rush–era merchants helped to establish Napa City on the banks of the Napa River. The little waterway provided the developing valley with easy access to San Francisco’s ports and markets. While farmers in the Up Valley (the region above Yountville) were experimenting with viticulture, Napans were founding businesses and small manufacturing companies.

      The general economy underwent a downturn at the start of the 20th century. Many of Napa’s original enterprises closed and its pioneer families moved away, selling out to recently arrived Italian immigrants who savored the chance for a new beginning.

      Prohibition and the Great Depression produced more difficult changes. Long after many parts of the United States had rebounded, the cities of Napa and Yountville had difficulty thriving. Lacking significant political clout, local representatives were unable to stop the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from flooding one of the county’s jewels, Berryessa Valley, to provide water for neighboring Yolo and Solano Counties, a project that was completed in 1957.

      Southern Napa Valley was late in embracing the wine industry and its cultural allure. In recent years, however, the hillsides in this former cattle-grazing area have begun to grow green with grapes. Land values have risen dramatically since the 1990s. Glad to find attractive acreage near California’s main transportation arteries while still removed from the San Francisco Bay Area’s urban bustle, moneyed newcomers are plunking down top dollar for a piece of what is now considered the South County wine country.

      Napa, Yountville, and the newly incorporated city of American Canyon hope to capitalize on this influx of new families. Attractions like the Napa Valley Museum, Copia, and the Napa Valley Opera House offer high-quality cultural experiences; excellent restaurants have proliferated, and an ambitious flood-control project is underway. While high-volume, big-box stores like Target and Home Depot are now thriving around the city’s periphery, commercial investors in Napa’s downtown area plan to revitalize with upscale businesses, ushering in, they hope, yet another era of change.

      This book, written by award-winning historian Lin Weber, illustrates the changes that the Napa area has seen since earliest times. Most of the photographs come from the Napa Valley Museum’s archives,

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