Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

 

Colusa County California

Colusa County. Organized 1850. Bounded north by Tehama, east by Butte and Sutter, south by Yolo and west by Lake and Mendocino. Area. 2,376 square miles. Assessed valuation of property for 1874, $9,130,850. County seat, Colusa. Principal towns. College City, Jacinto, Munchville, Newville and Princeton.

The principal resource of the county is agricultural, this ranking next to Stanislaus. In the production of wheat, and next to Sonoma in agricultural wealth. The county is also distinguished for its livestock of improved breeds of all domestic animals, grazing and cattle-raising having been the first of its developed enterprises.

The hills of the Coast Range, which swell the western border of the county, have long been known to contain silver, quicksilver, copper, sulphur, petroleum and salt, and recent developments have shown the quicksilver deposits to be of great value. As explorations continue, and the natural resources are made known, it indicates that every portion of the county possesses wealth of an agricultural or mineral character of a high order. Munchville, near Wilbur Springs, is in the centre of the quicksilver region and is thirty-five miles south of west from the town of Colusa.

The State is distinguished for its large farms, and this county presents a representative of this class. In the northern part of the county is the farm of Dr. Hugh Glenn, of 57,000 acres, having a frontage on the Sacramento River of seventeen miles, and extending five miles into the plain. This was mostly cultivated in wheat in the year 1874, and about 1,600,000 bushels was the product. The county is nearly a parallelogram, extending sixty miles in a direct line north and south, and the southern part from Butte Creek, and the northern from the Sacramento River, to the summit of the Coast Range on the west, giving a breadth of near fifty miles, thus embracing a broad and fertile section of the great valley. The river affords cheap transportation through the whole length of the county, being navigable at all seasons of the year for steamers towing barges of eight hundred tons to the town of Colusa, and of four hundred tons to points above. This fine and open channel forbids a monopoly of transportation, and has obviated the necessity of a railroad for freight, although the increasing passenger travel indicates the necessity of this improved system of highways.

A large number of small streams have their sources in the Coast Range and flow eastward, and either sink in the valley or gather in the sloughs that connect with the Sacramento in the southern part of the county. Stony Creek, the principal of the Coast Range streams, rises about twenty miles north of the southern boundary and flows north to the northern boundary, thence southeast to the Sacramento. These would afford means for extensive irrigation were they controlled by proper engineering.

The Colusa, Lake and Mendocino Telegraph Company, having their headquarters at Colusa, extend their wires through the counties named, being a great convenience to the business public and a source of profit to the projectors. At Colusa it connects with the Western Union Telegraph and with the world.

Officers: F. L. Hatch, County Judge; S. M. Bishop, Clerk, Recorder and Auditor; A. H. Hart, District Attorney; James L. Howard, Sheriff and Tax Collector; Moses Stinchfield, Treasurer; W. N. Herd, Assessor; M. P. Ferguson, Surveyor; S. H. Allen, Coroner and Public Administrator; J. E. Putnam, Superintendent Public Schools.

California Gazetteer | AHGP California

Source: Pacific Coast Business Directory for 1876-78, Compiled by Henry G. Langley, San Francisco, 1875


Please Stop by Again!


Back to AHGP

Copyright August © 2011 - 2024 AHGP AHGP The American History and Genealogy Project.
Enjoy the work of our webmasters, provide a link, do not copy their work

This page was last updated  


Hosted Free