Anderson Valley is a sparsely populated region in western Mendocino County in

Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...

. Located approximately north of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, the name "Anderson Valley" applies broadly to several rural, unincorporated communities in or near the alluvial terraces along Anderson Creek and other tributaries to the Navarro River. It is named after William Anderson, an early European settler to the area.

Geography

The name "Anderson Valley" applies to a region stretching from Boonville (located on Anderson Creek) and

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian J ...

(located on Indian Creek) to Navarro (located on Soda Creek). Rancheria, Anderson, Indian and Soda creeks are tributaries to the Navarro River, which flows north and west through the coastal range to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

; Dry Creek flows south into the Russian River watershed in Sonoma County. The main stem of the Navarro River begins less than a mile south of Philo at the confluence of Anderson Creek and Rancheria Creek. The mouth of the Navarro is south of

Mendocino, California Mendocino (Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza") is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community in Mendocino County, California, United States. The name comes from Cape Mendocino to the north, named b ...

. Encompassing , the Navarro River watershed is the largest coastal basin in Mendocino County. The area is not seismically active, though a minor fault runs along the Valley floor. The climate is tempered by cool marine air. Steep hills and mountains surround rolling to nearly level alluvial terraces. The dominant natural vegetation is a mixed forest of Coast Redwood, various native oak varieties, and

Douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Or ...

. Elevation ranges from sea level to . The average annual precipitation ranges . The average annual temperature is about , and the average frost-free season ranges from 220 to 365 days. Towards the coast the summers are cool and moist with frequent fog, while the interior Anderson Valley proper features a warm to hot summer climate similar to nearby interior regions, with daytime highs occasionally in excess of .

History

Early Native inhabitants of Anderson Valley were speakers of two of the seven

Pomoan languages The Pomoan, or Pomo , languages are a small family of seven languages indigenous to northern California spoken by the Pomo people, whose ancestors lived in the valley of the Russian River (California), Russian River and the Clear Lake (California ...

. The Late Pomo of what is now the Yorkville area spoke the

Central Pomo language Central Pomo is an extinct Pomoan language spoken in Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmo ...

. The Tabahtea (Tah-bah-tay) Pomo of the Boonville area west to Navarro spoke the Northern Pomo language. These residents occupied nineteen known village sites, with an estimated population of 600 in 1855. The early European American settlers of Anderson Valley arrived after 1850. They practiced subsistence farming and expanded into resource extraction economies based on

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

harvesting and

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

ranching. Some of the first European American settlers included Henry Beeson (who took part in the

Bear Flag Revolt The California Republic, or Bear Flag Republic, was an List of historical unrecognized states#Americas, unrecognized breakaway state from Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico, that existed from June 14, 1846 to July 9, 1846. It milita ...

), his brother Isaac Beeson and William Anderson, their stepbrother, for whom the valley was named. The first wave of European American settlers included the Ornbaun, Hutsell, Barnett, Clow, Gschwend, McAbee, Rector, Horse, Burgess, Rawles, McGimsey, Witherell, Irish, Holgooden, Hiatt, Ball, Prather, Smelley, McSpadden, Wallace, Conrad, O'Barr, Bowen, Nunn, Vines, Buster, Farrer, Counts, Shields, Lawson, Williams, Donelly, Plaskett, Leonard, Hawkins, Stephens, Robinson, Tift, Perkins, Elliott, Ponad, Gasklii, Brayton, and Connard families. John Gschwend established the first water powered lumber mill along the Navarro River in 1857, and Thomas Hiatt built the first steam powered lumber mill in 1877 near present-day Boonville. In 1880 a human population of around 1,000 maintained 75,000 head of sheep and 20,000 head of cattle. Commercial production of

apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

s and

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whic ...

began before the turn of the century, along with the development of

Boontling Boontling is a jargon or argot spoken only in Boonville, California. It was created in the 1890s. Today, it is nearly extinct, and fewer than 100 people still speak it. It has an Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) sub-tag of boont (i.e. ...

, the local folk language. The 1940s and 1950s were boom years, when industrial automation and modern highway transportation enabled rapid liquidation logging of the remaining

redwood Sequoioideae, commonly referred to as redwoods, is a subfamily of Pinophyta, coniferous trees within the family (biology), family Cupressaceae, that range in the Northern Hemisphere, northern hemisphere. It includes the List of superlative tree ...

forests. Many commercial lumber mills were established to work the brief timber boom. By the 1960s the sheep, timber and apple sectors of the economy were in decline. Large tracts of land were removed from production and subdivided. The first commercial vineyards for wine grapes were planted.

Marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

production flourished with the influx of many new residents from the urban counterculture in the 1970s. By the 1980s the timber industry was reduced to two small specialty mills (lath and decorative fencing), the sheep industry to four working ranches of modest size, and the apple industry to a small fraction of its former planted area. In 1989 Sean Donovan of Boonville established KZYX, a community-based non-commercial,

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

affiliated station.

Wine industry

A wine boom began in the 1980s, leading to the eventual establishment of the Anderson Valley AVA, specializing in Alsatian varietals,

pinot noir Pinot noir (), also known as Pinot nero, is a red-wine grape variety of the species ''Vitis vinifera''. The name also refers to wines created predominantly from Pinot noir grapes. The name is derived from the French language, French words fo ...

and sparkling wine. The wine industry is currently the dominant contributor to the Anderson Valley economy, and major producers include Lazy Creek Vineyards and Roederer Estate. The major annual wine events are the Pinot Noir Festival held on the third weekend in May and the International Alsace Varietals Festival in late February. In addition to wine, there is a successful

microbrewery Craft beer is beer manufactured by craft breweries, which typically produce smaller amounts of beer than larger "macro" breweries and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as emphasising enthusiasm, ne ...

, the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, on the outskirts of Boonville. Like much of Mendocino County, the hospitality industry is a natural adjunct to boutique alcohol production. Fine restaurants and quality lodging are in good supply. The pleasant natural environment and rural lifestyle attracts artists, writers, musicians and a variety of skilled crafts people. As in similar pastoral regions dependent upon a low-paid work force in the farm, hospitality and service sectors, degraded tenant housing is available for local employees, while upscale real estate inventory is generally priced beyond the typical household budget of resident unskilled laborers.

Communities

* Boonville * Navarro *

* Yorkville

References

External links