Jazz Began in Boyes Springs

The story goes that the word "jazz" first appeared in print in a newspaper story about a gifted young pitcher for the San Francisco Seals, a local baseball team, in 1913. They were in Spring training at what is now the Sonoma Mission Inn, and the reporter was asking him what he did to that baseball to make it act the way it does. He replied, using a term not heard before in polite society: "I just put some jazz on it." A band in rehearsal in the same room overheard the comment and decided it was the perfect term for the new music they were playing. Their next gig was in a town back east called Chicago.

The Original Sugar Daddy

Alma Charlotte Corday le Normand de Bretteville, an artist’s model from San Francisco, married Adolph Spreckels, a wealthy man twice her age, on May 11, 1908. They lived at Sobre Vista, a large estate on the west side of Sonoma Valley. Because he had made his fortune as founder of the Spreckels Sugar Company, Alma often referred to Adolph as her “sugar daddy”, a phrase that came into popular use soon afterwards.

The Blissful Sonoma Hills

Perhaps the most widely-viewed hill ever is the one that for years announced the startup of Microsoft Windows XP. You've certainly seen it: there is a perfectly rendered low rolling green hill beneath a perfectly blue sky with whispy white clouds floating above. The image goes by the name "Bliss", for the state of mind that it is supposed to invoke. The hill itself can be seen in person a mile or so east of the Stornetta Dairy, on the road towards Napa.