About Napa

Napa is the county seat of Napa County, California. It is the principal city of the Napa county Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses Napa county. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 76,915. It is also the 100th largest city in California. The area was settled in the 1830s. It was incorporated as a city in 1872.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.1 square miles (47 km2). 17.8 square miles (46 km2) of it is land and 0.3 square miles (0.78 km2) of it (1.69%) is water. The Napa River traverses the city on its journey to the San Pablo Bay. The city has conducted a variety of waterfront development along the banks of the river including certain fill operations governed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers regulations. The Napa River Flood Project has been in progress since the late 1990s with the goal of mitigating the risk of flooding along a 6-mile (9.7 km) stretch of the River and 1-mile (1.6 km) of Napa Creek.

The name Napa was probably derived from the name given to a southern Nappan village whose people shared the area with elk, deer, grizzlies and cougars for many centuries, according to Napa historian Kami Santiago. At the time of the first recorded exploration into Napa Valley in 1823, the majority of the inhabitants consisted of Native American Indians. Padre José Altimira, founder of Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, led the expedition. Spanish priests converted some natives; the rest were attacked and dispersed by Spanish soldiers. American farmers began arriving in the 1830s.

The City of Napa was founded by Nathan Coombs in 1847. It was not the plan of General Mariano G. Vallejo. He had paid to survey for a township down river at Soscol Landing where riverboats could turn around. The Napa townsite was surveyed by James M. Hudspeth on property Coombs had received from Nicolas Higuera, original holder of the Rancho Entre Napa Mexican land grant. The first business establishment in the town was a saloon built by Harrison Pierce, a former miller at the Bale Grist Mill. Napa's first general store was opened a year later in 1848 by Joseph P. Thompson. The first record of a ship navigating the river was the Susana in 1842. John Sutter's schooner the Sacramento landed in 1844 to pick up a load of lime and deliver passengers. By 1850 the Dolphin became the first passenger steamship to navigate the Napa River in order to open another path of commerce.

Napa was incorporated on March 23, 1872, and reincorporated again in 1874 as the City of Napa. Louis Bruck of Bremen, Germany was elected the first mayor. He was the Napa Valley pioneer (having arrived in California before 1850) that married Lolita Bale, eldest daughter of mill owner Edward Turner Bale. In 1848, Bale died and Bruck became the executor of Bale Grist Mill and the lands of Rancho Carne Humana.