History
 
Bottles of wine in Napa ValleyThe name Napa was probably derived from the name given to a southern Nappan village whose people shared the area with elk, deer, grizzlies and panthers for many centuries. At the time of the first recorded exploration into Napa Valley in 1823, the majority of the inhabitants consisted of Native American Indians. Padre Jose Altimura, founder of the Mission de Sonoma, led the expedition. Spanish and then later Mexican control remained until the Bear Flag Revolt, American farmers began arriving in the 1830s.

When California was granted statehood in 1849, Napa Valley was in the Territory of California, District of Sonoma. In 1850 when counties were first organized, Napa became one of the original counties of California. In 1851, the first courthouse was erected. By 1870, the Native American demographics changed significantly due to the probably cause of U.S. Manifest Destiny by Americans, even though Spanish settlers were the first Europeans to settle the area, they however did not interfere with the vast majority of Native Americans even though the majority of lands were held by Spanish. Today, Native Americans native to the area, live in and around Alexander Valley, where they also live on reservations granted by the government.

            Napa County Fair in Calistoga                   

The City of Napa was founded by Nathan Coombs in 1847. The townsite was surveyed by James M. Hudspeth on property Coombs had received from Nicolas Higuerra, holder of the original Spanish Grant. The first business establishment in the town was a saloon built by Harrison Pierce a former miller at the Bale Grist Mill. Napa's first general store was opened a year later in 1848 by Joseph P. Thompson. By 1850 the Dophin became the first steamship to navigate the Napa River in order to open another path of commerce.

 Nathan Coombs and many other important City founders and builders are buried nearby in Tulocay Cemetery. Near the entrance is the tomb of Mary (Mammy) Pleasant who is considered the Mother of Civil Rights in California.

In the mid 1850s, Napa Main Street rivaled that of many larger cities, with as many as 100 saddle horses tied to the fences on an average afternoon. Hotels were crowded, cash slugs and California coinage were plentiful. Saloons and gambling emporiums were numerous. The Lyceum movement established a facility and reading room and an agricultural society was started. Two newspapers began publication in the 1850s. The Napa Valley Register made its debut in 1853 and Alexander J. Cox published the Napa County Reporter for the first time on July 4, 1856. The Napa Opera House became popular but, it languished. It was closed for many years until a popular movement re-established and rebuilt the building. Today, it currently hosts many popular entertainers.

The California Gold Rush of the late 1850s expanded Napa City. After the first severe winter in the gold fields, miners sought refuge in the young city from snow, cold, floods and disease. A tent city was erected along Main Street. There was plenty of work in the valley for disillusioned miners. Many cattle ranches were maintained, and the lumber industry had mushroomed. Sawmills in the valley were in operation cutting up timber that was hauled by team to Napa City, then shipped out on the river to Benicia and San Francisco.

In 1858 the great silver rush began in Napa Valley, and miners eagerly flocked to the eastern hills. In the 1860s, mining carried on, in a large scale, with quicksilver mines operating in many areas of Napa County. The most noted mine was the Silverado Mine, near the summit of Mt. St. Helena. The mine was immortalized by Robert Louis Stevenson in his classic The Silverado Squatters.

                                                                         Mt. St. Helena

In 1869 F.A. Sawyer established Sawyer Tanning Company in Napa and was joined in the business by his father B.F. Sawyer a year later. It went on to become the largest tannery west of the Mississippi River.

Napa was incorporated in 1872 and reincorporated again in 1874 as the City of Napa.

The Napa State Asylum for the Insane located just south of Napa received its first patients in 1876. The Napa Valley Opera House made its debut on February 13, 1880 with a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.

Napa had become the primary business and economic center for the Napa Valley by the dawn of the 20th century. As agricultural and wine interests developed north of the city limits much of the light industry, banking, commercial and retail activity in the county evolved within the city of Napa and in earlier times along the Napa River through the historic downtown. Napa Glove Factory was established in 1903 and was the largest plant of its kind west of Chicago. In 1915 Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in their Napa workshop while working on an improvement for the telephone receiver. Pridham and Jensen went on to found the Magnavox Company in 1917

Even today the bulk of the county population lives in the City of Napa. The active economic development program has continued to support the wine and agricultural activities of the Valley to this day.

 Napa County is a county located north of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is part of the Napa, California Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2000 the population is 124,279. The county seat is Napa. Napa County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. Parts of the county's territory were given to Lake County in 1861. The word napa is of Native American derivation and has been variously translated as "grizzly bear", "house", "motherland", "fish"[citation needed]. Of the many explanations of the name's origin, the most plausible seems to be that it is derived from the Patwin word napo meaning house[citation needed], although local residents will often cite an urban legend that gives the translation as "you will always return".

Napa County, once the producer of many different crops, is known today for its wine industry, rising in the 1960s to the first rank of wine regions with France and Italy. Napa is a wine making region in the United States. The Napa wine country was the inspiration for the fictional Tuscany Valley on the nighttime soap opera Falcon Crest.

Adjacent Counties
Solano County, California - south, southeast
Sonoma County, California - west
Lake County, California - north
Yolo County, California - east

National protected area
San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge (part)

Rivers and creeks
Napa River
Milliken Creek
Putah Creek

wooden bridge-- Petaluma River 

Lakes, marshes and reservoirs
East Napa Reservoir
East Side Reservoir
Fiege Reservoir
Lake Berryessa
Lake Hennessey
Lake Marie
Lake Orville
Lake Whitehead
Milliken Reservoir
Napa Sonoma Marsh
Rector Reservoir
West Napa Reservoir

Napa Valley is widely considered one of the top AVAs in California, and all of the United States with a history dating back to the early nineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century there were more than one hundred and forty wineries in the area. Of those original wineries several still exist in the valley today including Charles Krug Winery, Shramsburg, Chateau Montelena and Beringer. Viticulture in Napa suffered a setback when prohibition was enacted across the country in 1920. Furthering the damage was an infestation of the phylloxera root louse which killed many of the vines through the valley. These two events caused many wineries to shut down and stalled the growth of the wine industry in Napa County for years. Following the Second World War, the wine industry in Napa began to thrive again.

In 1965, Napa Valley icon Robert Mondavi broke away from his family's Charles Krug estate to found his own. This was the first new large scale winery to be established in the valley since before prohibition. Following the establishment of the Mondavi estate, the number of wineries in the valley continued to grow, as did the region's reputation.

In addition to large scale wineries, Napa Valley's boutique wineries produce some of the world's best wines. The producers of these wines include but are not limited to: Araujo, Bryant Family, Colgin Cellars, Dalla Valle Maya, Diamond Creek, Dominus Estate, Duckhorn Vineyards, Dunn Howell Mountain, Grace Family, Harlan, Husic, Kistler, Jericho Canyon Vineyards, Marcassin, Screaming Eagle, Shafer Hillside Select, Sine Qua Non, Spencer-Roloson Winery and Vineyard 29.

Today Napa Valley features more than three hundred wineries and grows many different grape varieties including Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Zinfandel, and other popular varietals. Napa Valley is visited by as many as five million people each year, making it the second most popular tourist destination in California, second only to Disneyland.

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