Nicasio ( ;

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

for " Nicasius") is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

Marin County Marin County ( ) is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is ac ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States. It is located west-southwest of

Novato Novato (Spanish for "Novatus") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, situated in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. At the 2020 census, Novato had a population of 53,225. History What is now Novato was origi ...

, at an elevation of . As of the 2020 census the CDP population was 81, while population estimates for the surrounding area range from about 600 to about 900 people. Within Nicasio and the surrounding area are about 250 homes located on approximately 350 parcels. Much of the land is still used for agricultural purposes including beef and dairy cattle grazing, small-scale truck farming (including organic farming), and the raising of forage. Several small vineyards have also been recently established. Next to Rancho Nicasio within the town of Nicasio is an organic farm, AllStar Organics, owned and operated by Janet Brown and Marty Jacobson; Janet is the vice-president of Marin Organic, Marin County's non-profit organic association. Just north of Nicasio Reservoir is Fairlea Ranch, where pedigree longhorn cattle are raised. The most significant non-agricultural business within Nicasio is

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman ...

Skywalker Ranch Skywalker Ranch is a movie ranch and the workplace of film director, writer and producer George Lucas located in a secluded area near Nicasio, California, in Marin County. The ranch is located on Lucas Valley Road, named after an early-20th-c ...

, a part of

Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in December 10, 1971 in San Rafael, California, and later moved to San Francisco in 2005. It is best known for creating and producing th ...

Ltd. According to a 2004 ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' magazine real estate survey, Nicasio is the 23rd most expensive ZIP code in the US. Nicasio has the highest per capita income ($211,993) of any census-designated place in California. Centrally located in this area is the small village of Nicasio itself. The village is in area codes 415/628. The town center has a post office (ZIP code 94946), a general store, a tiny real estate office, St. Mary's

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

(established in 1867), Nicasio

Volunteer Fire Department A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respo ...

, a baseball field located in the town square, the Rancho Nicasio Bar & Restaurant, a

Druid A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. The druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no wr ...

's Hall, as well as a number of private homes. The town was founded in the early 19th century to support local agricultural, timber, and fishing activities. The town once contained the twenty-two-room Hotel Nicasio, which opened in 1867 but burned down in December 1940. Just north of town on Nicasio Valley Road next to the modern-day school building for

Nicasio School District Nicasio Elementary School District is a public school district in Marin County, California, United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North Ameri ...

is a one-room schoolhouse that opened in 1871. The building is currently a listed historical landmark. The Nicasio post office opened in 1871, closed in 1899, and reopened in 1900. In 2008, Dewey Livingston wrote a detailed history of the region titled ''Nicasio: The Historic Valley at the Center of Marin''.

Geography

The Nicasio region is a hydrologic zone containing the four main drainages of Nicasio Creek up to the ridgelines defining their basin. It includes the south fork of

Nicasio Creek Nicasio Creek is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 9, 2011 stream in Marin County, California, United States and is the primary tributary of Lagunitas Creek. It fl ...

extending from Moon Hill, along the ridge separating Nicasio from

San Geronimo San Geronimo or San Gerónimo may refer to: Places Argentina * San Gerónimo, San Luis, a village in central Argentina Bolivia * San Geronimo River Chile * San Gerónimo Aerodrome, an airport near Algarrobo, Valparaiso Dominican Republic * ...

and

Samuel P. Taylor State Park Samuel P. Taylor State Park is a state park located in Marin County, California, United States, which includes approximately of redwood forest and grassland. The park contains about of old-growth forest, some of which can be seen along the Pi ...

, and extending northwest towards the northern end of Platform Bridge Road; the east fork (

Lucas Valley Lucas Valley is a valley in Marin County, California, drained to the east into San Pablo Bay by Miller Creek, as well as an unincorporated community in the valley, which forms part of the Lucas Valley-Marinwood CDP. Lucas Valley Road travers ...

fork) of Nicasio Creek extending from Loma Alta and the ridge on the north side of

Sir Francis Drake Boulevard Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is an approximately 43.8 mile east–west arterial road in Marin County, California, running from the trailhead for Point Reyes Lighthouse at the end of the Point Reyes Peninsula to Interstate 580 just west of th ...

, extending up through Big Rock and up towards

Big Rock Ridge Big Rock Ridge is a ridge near Novato, California, and the 2nd tallest point in Marin County. The ridge is 5 miles long, and runs from the northwest to the east, dividing Novato's Ignacio Valley and San Rafael's Lucas Valley, and separating Novat ...

; the Halleck Creek drainage, up to the ridges separating Nicasio from

; the northern drainages extending along the ridgelines of Rocky Ridge, Hicks Mountain and Black Mountain. A major landmark in the area is the man-made

Nicasio Reservoir Nicasio Reservoir is a shallow, artificial reservoir in the Nicasio Valley region of Marin County, California, United States. It covers and sits in a drainage basin. It was created by the construction of Seeger Dam on the Nicasio Creek in . S ...

. Nicasio is surrounded by forested and open ridge lines surrounding a wide rolling valley. The area along Lucas Valley Road follows a narrow valley with mostly forested hillsides above it. Oak, bay, and fir trees are common in the area, and along some of the creeks stands of redwoods are still found. Wildlife is abundant; the Nicasio chickadee, a subspecies of the

chestnut-backed chickadee The chestnut-backed chickadee (''Poecile rufescens'') is a small passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae, native to western North America. Taxonomy In the early 20th century, Joseph Grinnell hypothesized that the chestnut-backed chickadee d ...

, was named by Robert Ridgway. Three main roads cross the area: Lucas Valley Road, Nicasio Valley Road, and the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road. Important pieces of public land in the surrounding area include

Point Reyes National Seashore Point Reyes National Seashore is a park preserve located on the Point Reyes, Point Reyes Peninsula in Marin County, California. As a national seashore, it is maintained by the US United States National Park Service, National Park Service as an ...

, portions of the

Golden Gate National Recreation Area The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the Unite ...

, and

Demographics

The 2020 United States census reported that Nicasio had a population of 81. The population density was . The racial makeup of Nicasio was 69 (85%)

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 1 (1%)

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0 (0%) Native American, 0 (0%) Asian, 0 (0%)

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 1 (1%) from other races, and 10 (12%) from two or more races.

Hispanic or Latino ''Hispanic'' and '' Latino'' are ethnonyms used to refer collectively to the inhabitants of the United States who are of Spanish or Latin American ancestry (). While many use the terms interchangeably, for example, the United States Census Bureau ...

of any race were 10 persons (12%). The whole population lived in households. There were 30 households, out of which 12 (40%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 19 (63%) were married-couple households, 5 (17%) were

cohabiting Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not legally married live together as a couple. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become incr ...

couple households, 4 (13%) had a female householder with no partner present, and 2 (7%) had a male householder with no partner present. 4 households (13%) were one person, and 3 (10%) were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.70. There were 21

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

(70% of all households). The age distribution was 16 people (20%) under the age of 18, 3 people (4%) aged 18 to 24, 17 people (21%) aged 25 to 44, 31 people (38%) aged 45 to 64, and 14 people (17%) who were 65years of age or older. The median age was 51.3years. There were 35 males and 46 females. There were 35 housing units at an average density of , of which 30 (86%) were occupied. Of these, 24 (80%) were owner-occupied, and 6 (20%) were occupied by renters.

Filming location

*''

The People The People may refer to: Legal jargon * The People, term used to refer to the people in general, in legal documents * "We the People of the United States", from the Preamble to the U. S. Constitution * In philosophy, economics, and political scienc ...

'' (1972), a made-for-TV movie starring William Shatner; locations include St. Mary's Church and the town square *''

Shoot the Moon ''Shoot the Moon'' is a 1982 American drama film directed by Alan Parker, and written by Bo Goldman. It stars Albert Finney, Diane Keaton, Karen Allen, Peter Weller, and Dana Hill. Set in Marin County, California, the film follows George ...

'' (1982), starring Albert Finney and Diane Keaton *'' Village of the Damned'' (1995), locations including Nicasio School and homes and regions in Nicasio The 1993 song "Daughter" by

Pearl Jam Pearl Jam is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. One of the key bands in the grunge, grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, ...

was recorded in Nicasio.

Government

In the

California State Legislature The California State Legislature is the bicameral state legislature of the U.S. state of California, consisting of the California State Assembly (lower house with 80 members) and the California State Senate (upper house with 40 members). ...

, Nicasio is in , and in . In the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

, Nicasio is in .

Education

Nicasio is served by the Nicasio Elementary School District and the

Tamalpais Union High School District The Tamalpais Union High School District or TUHSD provides high school education to students residing in ten elementary districts in central and southern Marin County, California and parts of West Marin. The headquarters are on the property of ...

.
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Notable residents

Jerry Garcia Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...

– lived in Nicasio from late 1992 until his death in 1995

Gallery

Nicasio Church (2463579593).jpg, St. Mary's Church House with American flag bunting at 4299 Nicasio Valley Road.jpg, House with American flag bunting in Nicasio Nicasio Valley Cheese Company 2.jpg, Nicasio Valley Cheese Company Nicasio Schoolhouse.jpg, 1871 Nicasio Schoolhouse Rancho Nicasio 2.jpg, Rancho Nicasio Restaurant Nicasio Valley Road.jpg, Nicasio Valley Road Druid's Hall (Nicasio, California) 2.jpg, Druid's Hall

References

External links

Nicasio community website
{{authority control Census-designated places in Marin County, California West Marin Census-designated places in California