History

This article is in need of a Photo.To add an image to this page, click "Edit" and then click the "Files" button.

Yuba-Sutter history begins with the Nisenan people, who lived in the area for thousands of years before Europeans arrived, and includes many interesting historical figures and historic places.

1806-1808: Spanish army lieutenant Gabriel Moraga led the Spanish army through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, becoming the first European to see the Sutter Buttes and displacing native people everywhere he went.

1841: John Sutter established Hock Farm, a few miles south of what is now South Yuba City.

1847: The Donner_Party arrived in the Yuba-Sutter area after its misadventures on the Overland Emigrant Trail.

1849: The Gold Rush brought a flood of gold miners to the area, establishing new towns and destroying ecosystems. Mine tailings fell into the rivers, raising the beds of the Yuba River and Feather River and consequently increasing flood risks to this day.

1850: California became a state, and Marysville was incorporated as one of its seven orginal cities. The original town of Linda was laid out near Hammonton.

1852: The town of Linda was moved to its current location. Its original location was later buried under mine tailings, and remains buried to this day.

1851: Two huge fires destroyed most of Marysville, causing over half a million dollars in damages. James Pierson Beckwourth forged the safest trail through the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range to Marysville, but Marysville reneged on its agreement to pay him for it.

1852-1854: The original Bok Kai Temple was built in Marysville, almost two blocks upstream from the current one.

1858: The California State Fair was held in Marysville, in the area bounded by B Street, C Street, 5th Street, and 6th Street.

1868: Angry farmers in the Marysville/Yuba City area formed the Anti-Debris Association, protesting the fact that gold mining corporations upstream were dumping so much debris into the rivers that the rivers were overflowing and destroying their land.

1872: Thompson's Seedless Grape was propagated for the first time, slightly west of Sutter.

1874: Wheatland was incorporated as a city.

1880: The current Bok Kai Temple was built in Marysville.

1884: The Anti-Debris Association won its case against hydraulic mining corporations.

1886: Marysville and Wheatland violently drove all their Chinese residents out of town in February, and Nicolaus did the same in March, as a wave of anti-Chinese racism intensified across California. Chinese people had previously been tolerated as railroad construction laborers, because the job of building railroads was too dangerous (often fatal) for white people to want to do it. But when railroad building was complete and Chinese laborers began seeking other forms of work, white people drove them out of town.

1888: Edward Park Duplex was elected mayor of Wheatland, becoming the first black man to be elected mayor of a western United States city.

1894: W. T. Ellis, Jr., was elected mayor of Marysville. He would become known as the father of Marysville's Levee system.

1895: The Marysville River Pumps were installed.

1908: Yuba City was incorporated as a city.

1913: The Wheatland Hop Riot at Durst Ranch led to improved conditions for Migrant Farm Workers.

1924-1939: The Women's Improvement Club of Marysville commissioned Robbie McLaren, the designer of Golden Gate Park, to turn the current site of Ellis Lake from a slough into a more enjoyable lake.

1933: The first annual Marysville Stampede and Flying U Rodeo was held.

1938: W. T. Ellis, Jr., published his autobiography, Memories: My Seventy-Two Years in the Romantic County of Yuba, California, providing one of the best records of Marysville's early history. It is now freely available online in its entirety.

1947: Live Oak was incorporated as a city.

1955: Marysville was evacuated due to a flood that destroyed the former bridge over the Yuba River on D Street in Marysville. The current E Street Bridge was built to replace it, one block west of the original.

1959: The first annual Harvest Hoedown was held.

1985: The first annual Bike Around the Buttes was held.

1988: The first annual Highland Games and Celtic Festival was held.

1991: The first annual Wear and Remembrance Vintage Clothing Fair was held.

1995: Cardboard boat races were added to the annual Great American Regatta.

1999: The first annual Yuba-Sutter Juneteenth Celebration and the first annual Marysville Peach Fest were held.

2011: June 8th, the Yuba County Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 to pass the 2030 General Plan Update. According to one observer, "Except for a few big developers, eager to turn unique farmland into Sacramento commuter housing and the County staff, nobody seemed particularly pleased with the plan. Even several of the Supervisors said they were not that happy, but the County had to move on, no doubt from pressure from the previously mentioned developers." However, other observers noted that the people most unhappy with the plan are the big landowners who wanted to sell their land to big developers for a lot of money while saddling the county government with the costs of paying to provide services to the new homes that would be built on the currently undeveloped land. Since Yuba County voters have chosen to keep county taxes low, the county simply doesn't have the money to pay for such things—nor is there any reason the county should have to bear the financial burden of new development while the big landowners and big developers keep all the profits.

For details about specific historical figures, see Historical Figures.