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Sonoma County, California
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Sonoma County, located on the northern coast of California, is one of the northernmost counties of the nine county Greater San Francisco Bay Area, U.S. Its population at the 2000 census was 458,614. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa.
Sonoma is the southwestern county of California's Wine Country region, which also includes Napa, Mendocino, and Lake counties. It has thirteen approved American Viticultural Areas and over 250 wineries. In 2002 Sonoma County ranked as the thirty-second county in the United States in agricultural production. As early as 1920 Sonoma County was ranked as the eighth most agriculturally productive U.S county and a leading producer of poultry products, hops, grapes, prunes, apples, and dairy products, largely due to the abundance of high quality irrigation water. More than 7.4 million tourists visit each year, spending more than $1 billion in 2006. Sonoma County is the home of Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa Junior College.
In earlier times, Sonoma County was the home to several distinct Native American tribes, who lived within the carrying capacity of the land; by 1850, European settlement had set a new direction that would prove to radically alter the course of land use and resource management of this region. As of 2007, Sonoma County has rich agricultural land, albeit now largely divided between two nearly monocultural uses: grapes and pasturage. The voters have twice approved open space initiatives that have provided considerable funding for public acquisition of natural areas, preserving forested areas, coastal habitat, and other open space.
Geography and environmentAccording to the U.S. Census Bureau, Sonoma County has a total area of 1,768 sq mi (4,580 km²). 1,576 sq mi (4,082 km²) is land, and 192 sq mi (498 km²) (10.88%) is water. Adjacent counties are Marin (to the south), Mendocino (to the north), Lake (northeast), Napa (to the east), and Solano and Contra Costa (to the southeast).
The county lies in the North Coast Ranges of northwestern California. Its ranges include the Mayacamas and the Sonoma Mountains, the southern peak of the latter being the prominent landform, Sears Point. The highest peak in the Mayacamas within the county is Hood Mountain. It has uncommon occurrences of pygmy forest, dominated by Mendocino Cypress. The highest peak of the Sonoma Mountains is Sonoma Mountain itself, which boasts two significant public access properties: Jack London State Historic Park and Fairfield Osborn Preserve.
Distinct habitat areas within the county include oak woodland, redwood forest, northern coastal scrub, grassland, marshland, oak savanna and riparian woodland. The California oak woodland in the upper Yulupa Creek and Spring Creek watersheds in Annadel State Park is a relatively undisturbed ecosystem with considerable biodiversity. These forested areas have been characterized as some of the best examples of such woodlands. An unusual characteristic of these forests is the high content of undisturbed prehistoric bunch grass understory, testifying to the absence of historic grazing or other agriculture.
Trees of the oak woodland habitat include Pacific Madrone, Douglas fir, Coast Live Oak, Garry oak and California laurel. Common understory plants are toyon, poison oak, and at the fringes coast silk-tassel.
Threatened/endangered species
A number of endangered plants and animals are found in Sonoma County including the California clapper rail, Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, Northern Red-legged Frog, Sacramento splittail, California freshwater shrimp, Showy Indian clover and Hickman's potentilla.
Species of special local concern include the California Tiger Salamander and some endangered plants, including Burke's Goldfields (Lasthenia burkei), Sebastopol Meadowfoam (Limnanthes vinculans), and Sonoma Sunshine or Baker's Stickyseed (Blennosperma bakeri).
Endangered species that are endemic to Sonoma County include Sebastopol Meadowfoam, Sonoma Sunshine, and Pitkin Marsh lily, Lilium pardalinum subsp Pitkinense.
The Sonoma County Water Agency has had a Fisheries Enhancement Program since 1996. Its website says :
- "The primary focus of the FEP is to enhance habitat for three salmonids: Steelhead, Chinook salmon, and Coho salmon. These three species are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The California Department of Fish and Game considers the Coho salmon endangered."
Ocean, bays, rivers and streamsSonoma County is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and has 76 miles of coastline. The major coastal hydrographic features are Bodega Bay, the mouth of the Russian River, and the mouth of the Gualala River, at the border with Mendocino County.
Six of the county's nine cities, from Healdsburg south through Santa Rosa to Rohnert Park and Cotati, are in the Santa Rosa Plain. The northern Plain drains to the Russian River, or a tributary; the southern Plain drains to the Russian River via the Laguna de Santa Rosa.
Russian RiverMuch of central and northern Sonoma County is in the watershed of the Russian River and its tributaries. The river rises in the coastal mountains of Mendocino County, north of the city of Ukiah, and flows into Lake Mendocino, a major flood control reservoir. The Russian flows south from the lake through Mendocino to Sonoma County, paralleled by Highway 101. It turns west at Healdsburg, receiving water from Lake Sonoma via Dry Creek, and empties into the Pacific Ocean at Jenner.
Laguna de Santa RosaThe Laguna de Santa Rosa is the largest tributary of the Russian River. It is 14 miles (23 km) long, running north from Cotati to the Russian River near Forestville. Its flood plain is more than 7,500 acres (30 km²). It drains a 254 square mile (658 km²) watershed, including most of the Santa Rosa Plain.
The Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation says ,
- "The Laguna de Santa Rosa is Sonoma County's richest area of wildlife habitat, and the most biologically diverse region of Sonoma County (itself the second-most biologically diverse county in California). ... It is a unique ecological system covering more than 30,000 acres (120 km²) and comprised of a mosaic of creeks, open water, perennial marshes, seasonal wetlands, riparian forests, oak woodlands and grasslands. ... As the receiving water of a watershed where most of the county's human population lives, it is a landscape feature of critical importance to Sonoma County's water quality, flood control, and biodiversity."
The Laguna's largest tributary is Santa Rosa Creek, which runs through Santa Rosa. Its major tributaries are Brush Creek, Mark West Creek, Matanzas Creek, Spring Creek and Piner Creek.
Other water bodiesThe boundary with Marin County runs from the mouth of the Estero Americano at Bodega Bay, up Americano Creek, then overland to San Antonio Creek and down the Petaluma River to its mouth at the northwest corner of San Pablo Bay, which adjoins San Francisco Bay. The southern edge of Sonoma County comprises the northern shore of San Pablo Bay between the Marin County border at the Petaluma River and the border with Solano County at Sonoma Creek. Sonoma County has no incorporated communities directly on the shore of San Pablo Bay. however, and at the present there is only a private marina with related facilities called Port Sonoma near the mouth of the Petaluma River. However, the Petaluma River which flows into San Pablo Bay, is navigable up to the city of Petaluma.
The Petaluma River, Tolay Creek, and Sonoma Creek enter the bay at the county's southernmost tip. The intertidal zone where they join the bay is the vast Napa Sonoma Marsh.
Americano Creek, the Petaluma River, Tolay Creek, and Sonoma Creek are the principal streams draining the southern portion of the county. The Sonoma Valley is drained by Sonoma Creek, whose major tributaries are Yulupa Creek, Graham Creek, Calabazas Creek, Schell Creek and Carriger Creek; Arroyo Seco Creek is tributary to Schell Creek.
Lakes and reservoirs in the county include Lake Sonoma, Tolay Lake, Lake Ilsanjo, Santa Rosa Creek Reservoir, Lake Ralphine, and Fountaingrove Lake.
ClimateSonoma County, as is often the case with coastal counties in California, has a great degree of climatic variation and numerous, often very different, microclimates. Key determining factors for local climate are proximity to the ocean, elevation, and the presence and elevation of hills or mountains to the east and west. This is in large part due to the fact that, as throughout California, the prevailing weather systems and wind come normally from the Pacific Ocean, blowing in from the west and southwest so that places closer to the ocean and on the windward side of higher elevations tend to receive more rain from autumn through spring and more wind and fog in summer. This itself is partly a result of the presence of high and low pressures in inland California, with persistent high summer temperatures in the Central Valley, in particular, leading to low pressures, drawing in air moist air from the Pacific, cooling into damp cool breezes and fog over the cold coastal water. Those places further inland and particularly in the lee of significant elevations tend to receive less rain and less, in some cases no, fog in the summer.
The coast itself is typically cool and moist throughout summer, often foggy, with fog generally blowing in during the late afternoon and evening until it clears in the later morning to be sunny, before repeating. Coastal summer highs are typically in the high 60s to low 70s, being warmer the further from the ocean.
Certain inland areas, including the Petaluma area and the Santa Rosa Plain, are also prone to this normal fog pattern in general. However, they tend to receive the fog later in the evening, the fog tends to be more short-lived, and mid-day tempertatures are significantly higher than they are on the coast, typically in the low 80s F. This is particularly true for Petaluma, Cotati and Rohnert Park, and, only slightly less so, Santa Rosa, Windsor, and Sebastopol. In large part this results from lower elevations and the prominant Petaluma Gap in the hills between the ocean to the west and the Petaluma Valley and Santa Rosa Plain to the east.
Areas north of Santa Rosa and Windsor, with larger elevations to the west and further from the fog path, tend to receive less fog and less summer marine influence. Healdsburg to the north of Windsor is much less foggy and much warmer, with summer highs typically in the higher 80s to about 90 F. Sonoma and the Sonoma Valley, east of Petaluma, are are similar, with highs typically in the very high 80s F to 90 F. This is in part due to the prsence of the Sonoma Mountains between Petaluma and Sonoma. Cloverdale far to the north out of the Santa Rosa Plain, is significantly hotter than any other city in the county, with rare evening-morning fog and highs often in the 90s, reaching 100 much more frequently than the other cities. Notably, however, the temperature differences are greatest for the highs during mid-day, with the diurnal lows much more even throughout the entire county. The lows are closely tied to the evening-morning cooling marine influence, in addition to elevation, bringing similarly cool temperatures to much of region.
These weather patterns contribute to high diurnal temperature fluctuations in much of the county. In summer, daily lows and highs are typically 30-40 degress F apart in land, with highs for Petaluma, Cotati, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Windsor, and Sebastopol typically being in the very low 80s F and lows at or near 50 F. Healdsburg and Sonoma, with similar lows, have even greater diurnal fluctuations due to their significantly warmer highs. On the other hand, the coast, with strong marine influence, tends to have low diurnal temperature fluctuation, with summer highs much cooler than the inland towns, typically 65-75 F, yet lows in the high 40s to low 50s F, fairly comparable to most inland towns.
These microclimates are evident during the rainy seasons as well, with great variation in the amount of rainfall throughout the county. Generally, all of Sonoma County receives a fair amount of rain, with much of the county receiving between about 25 inches, comparable to areas such as Sonoma and Petaluma, and roughly 30 inches normal for Santa Rosa. However, certain areas, particularly in the north-west portion of the county around the Russian River, receive significantly more rainfall. The Guerneville area, for example, typically receives about 50 inches of rain a year, with annual rain occasionally going as high as 70 inches. Nearby Cazadero typically receives about 72 inches of rain a year, many times has reached over 100 inches a year, and sometimes over 120 inches of rain a year. The Cazadero region is the second wettest place in California after Gasquet.
Snow is exceedingly rare in Sonoma County except in the higher elevations on and around the Mayacamas Mountains, particularly Mount Saint Helena and Lake County's nearby Cobb Mountain.
HistorySonoma County has a rich and varied history. It contains many historical monuments and for many years in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a leading center of commerce, agriculture, population, and even politics, before other parts of the state surpassed it in importance.
The Pomo, Coast Miwok and Wappo peoples were the earliest human settlers of Sonoma County, between 5000 to 8000 BC, effectively living within the natural carrying capacity of the land. Spaniards, Russians, and other Europeans claimed and settled in the county from the late 16th to mid 19th century, seeking timber, fur, and farmland.
The Russians were the first newcomers to establish a permanent foothold in Sonoma County, with the Russian-American Company establishing Fort Ross on the Sonoma Coast in 1812. This settlement and its outlying Russian settlements came to include a population of several hundred Russian and Aleut settlers and a stockaded fort with artillery. However, the Russians abandoned it in 1841 and sold the fort to John Sutter, settler and Mexican land grantee of Sacramento.
The Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in 1823 as the last and northernmost of 21 California missions, is in the present City of Sonoma, at the northern end of El Camino Real. El Presidio de Sonoma, or Sonoma Barracks (part of Spain's Fourth Military District), was established in 1836 by Comandante General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. His duties included keeping an eye on the Russian traders at Fort Ross, secularizing the Mission, maintaining cooperation with the Native Americans of the entire region, and doling out the lands for large estates and ranches. The City of Sonoma was the site of the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846.
Sonoma was one of the original counties formed when California became a state in 1850 with its county seat originally the town of Sonoma. However, by the early 1850s the town of Sonoma had declined in importance in terms of both commerce and population, its county buildings were crumbling, and it was relatively remote. As a result, elements in the newer, rapidly growing towns of Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and Healdsburg began vying to move the county seat to their towns. The dispute ultimately was between the bigger, richer commercial town of Petaluma and the more centrally located, growing agricultural center of Santa Rosa. The fate was decided following an election for the state legislature in which James Bennett of Santa Rosa defeated Joseph Hooker of Sonoma and introduced a bill that ultimately resulted in Santa Rosa being confirmed as county seat in 1854. Allegedly, several Santa Rosans, not caring to wait, decided to take action and, one night, rode down the Sonoma Valley to Sonoma, took the county seals and records, and brought them to Santa Rosa.
Early post-1847 settlement and development focused primarily on the city of Sonoma, then the region's sole town and a common transit and resting point in overland travel between the region and Sacramento and the gold fields to the east. However, after 1850, a settlement that soon became the city of Petaluma began to grow naturally near the farthest navigable point inland up the Petaluma River. Originally a hunting camp used to obtain game to sell in other markest, by 1854 Petaluma had grown into a bustling centre of trade, taking advantage of its position in the river near a region of highly productive agricultural land that was being settled. Soon, other inland town, notably Santa Rosa and Healdsburg began to develop similarly due to their locations along riparian areas in prime agricultural flatland. However, their development initially lagged behind Petaluma which, until the arrival of railroads in the 1860s, remained the primary commercial, transit, and break-of-bulk point for people and goods in the region. After the arrival of the railroad, Santa Rosa in particular began to boom, soon equalling and then surpassing Petaluma as the regional population and commercial centre.
Six nations have claimed Sonoma County from 1542 to the present:
| Spanish Empire, 1542, by sea, voyage of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo as far as the Russian River. Later validated by voyage of Sebastián Vizcaíno, 1602. | | Kingdom of England, June 1579, voyage of the Golden Hind under Captain Francis Drake at Bodega Bay (exact location disputed). | | Spanish Empire, October 1775, the Sonora at Bodega Bay, under Lt. Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra until 1821, when Mexico gained Independence from Spain. | | Russian Empire, by Russian-American Company expedition led by Ivan Alexandrovich Kuskov, the founder of Fort Ross and, from 1812 to 1821, its colonial administrator. Note: There is an overlap of rule with the Mexican Empire (next item), until the Russians sold Fort Ross in 1841 to John Sutter, before leaving the area in 1842. | | First Mexican Empire, 24 August 1821, under Emperor Agustin Iturbide (October 1822, probable time new flag raised in California) until 1823. | | Mexican Republic, 1823 until June 1846. | | California Republic, 14 June 1846 until 9 July 1846. | | United States of America, 9 July 1846 to present. |
Etymology
According to the book California Place Names, "The name of the Indian tribe is mentioned in baptismal records of 1815 as Chucuines o Sonomas, by Chamisso in 1816 as Sonomi, and repeatedly in Mission records of the following years."
According to the Coast Miwok and the Pomo tribes that lived in the region, Sonoma translates "valley of the moon" or "many moons". Their legends detail this as a land where the moon nestled, hence the names Sonoma Valley and The Valley of the Moon. (May,Indian Country) This translation was first recorded in an 1850 report by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo to the California Legislature.. Jack London popularized it in his 1913 novel The Valley of the Moon
In the native languages there is also a constantly recurring ending tso-noma, from tso, the earth; and noma, village; hence tsonoma, ‘earth village’. Other sources say Sonoma comes from the Patwin tribes west of the Sacramento River, and their Wintu word for "nose". Per California Place Names, "the name is doubtless derived from a Patwin word for 'nose', which Padre Arroyo (Vocabularies, p. 22) gives as sonom (Suisun)."
Bowman (CFQ 5:300-302 [1946]) theorizes that Spaniards found an Indian chief with a prominent protuberance and applied the nickname of Chief Nose to the village and the territory (cf. Alfred L. Kroeber, AAE 29:354 [1932]). Beeler believes the name applied originally to a nose-shaped geographic feature (WF 13:268-72 [1954]).
DemographicsAt the 2000 census, there were 458,614 people, 172,403 households, and 112,406 families in Sonoma County. The population density was 291/sq mi (112/km²). There were 183,153 housing units at an average density of 116/sq mi (45/km²).
The racial makeup was 81.60% White, 1.42% Black or African American, 1.18% Native American, 3.07% Asian, 0.20% Pacific Islander, 8.44% of other races, and 4.09% of two or more races. 17.34% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 12.1% were of German, 10.6% Irish, 9.8% English and 8.9% Italian ancestry according to Census 2000. 80.4% spoke English and 13.8% Spanish as their first language.
Of the 172,403 households, 50.30% were married couples living together, 34.80% were non-families, and 10.40% had a female householder with no husband present. 31.90% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 25.70% were individuals, and 10.00% were 65 years of age or older living alone. The average household size was 2.60, and the average family size was 3.12.
The median age was 38 years. 24.50% were under 18, 8.80% from 18 to 24, 29.20% from 25 to 44, 24.90% from 45 to 64, and 12.60% were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 97 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94 males.
The median household income was $53,076, and the median family income was $61,921. Males had a median income of $42,035, females $32,022. The per capita income for the county was $25,724. About 4.70% of families and 8.10% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.40% of those under age 18 and 5.70% of those age 65 or over.
GovernmentSonoma County's governing board and legislative body is a five-member Board of Supervisors . Supervisors are elected by district at the Consolidated Primary Election, and serve for four years. The Supervisors also sit as directors of several local jurisdictions, such as the Water Agency , and Agricultural Preservation & Open Space District .
Three current Supervisors were elected in 2004: Valerie Brown (1st District), Tim Smith (3rd District), and Mike Reilly (5th District); and two in 2006: Mike Kerns (2nd District) and Paul L. Kelley (4th District). Supervisor Brown is the current Chairwoman. The Supervisors appoint the members of 59 boards, commissions, and committees .
The County Administrator is the county's chief executive officer, reporting to the Board of Supervisors. The administrator (currently Bob Deis) manages the county's departments, such as the regional parks department.
Cities and townsSonoma County has nine incorporated municipalities.
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