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
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