Recent History
Recognized
as the birthplace of California’s wine industry, Sonoma Valley isn't
just home to 183-year-old vines, it lays claim to a certain pioneering
resilience. Despite General Vallejo’s efforts, the town of Sonoma lost
its place as the county seat once the booming Gold Rush redirected the
flow of commerce south to San Francisco. In the 19th century the Valley's wine industry would survive an
epidemic of the root disease phylloxera; in the 20th, it would weather
Prohibition. After World War II, the region's wine trade rebounded and
flourished, steadily evolving ever since. Although it has grown, it has
remained isolated enough to keep its original beauty. Rich in
agricultural heritage and recognized as the birthplace of California’s
premium wine industry, Sonoma Valley is home to vineyards planted as
early as 1824 by the Mission’s Franciscan Fathers. Today, Sonoma Valley
remains a vigorous hub for the wine industry and a popular tourist
destination. Visitors can sample local varietals at more than 40 premium
wineries and tasting rooms.
FROM FRONTIER TO BYWAY Immediately after the annexation of
California to the United States, the U.S. Navy governed Sonoma in a
loose confederation with the Bear Flaggers. Fremont was sent back to
Washington and eventually court-martialed for his unauthorized raids on
Mexicans. In 1847, a regiment of Army volunteers from New York arrived
to garrison the town of Sonoma as a frontier outpost, a military goal
similar to that of Mariano G. Vallejo’s when he oversaw the town. One of
its commanders, John B. Frisbie (who married one of General Vallejo's
daughters,) in fact speeded the financial ruin of the general.
California became a state in 1850, and Vallejo was elected a
state senator. He lobbied vigorously to locate the state capital in one
of two nearby towns (formed largely from his extensive land holdings):
Benicia, named for his wife, and which lay on the Carquinez Straits at
the northeast tip of San Pablo Bay; and an adjacent town previously
called Eureka, but later named Vallejo in his honor. Benicia briefly
served as the capital. 
Vallejo’s power grab fast becoming futile, he tried to keep Sonoma the
county seat, battling a challenge from the upstart Santa Rosa. The
latter city won in a countywide election in 1854--a result some Sonoma
historians still dispute. The town of Sonoma further lost its political
significance when residents of Santa Rosa removed all the county records
in the middle of the night.
Sonoma Valley retained, of course, its favorable
surroundings, experiencing a period of gradual development as a rural
agricultural and social center. The Gold Rush had temporarily drained
the Valley many of its males, but Sonoma did feel the impact of
California immigration and its growing wealth. With U.S. rule came the
appropriation of many land holdings, and Vallejo lost much of his real
estate, which once amounted to 7 million acres. Later, his son-in-law,
Commander Frisbie, involved him in a series of disastrous financial
speculations that left him nearly penniless. His Sonoma home on West
Spain Street was all that remained when he passed away in 1890.
The Valley has always grown grapes, and the Mission fathers
planted primitive vineyards, whose berries were crushed under the feet
of their indigenous religious proselytes. Vallejo continued the
tradition. Then, in the late 1850s, a Hungarian immigrant, Agoston
Haraszthy, arrived in the Valley. Haraszthy had turned a scientific eye
on viticulture, and he convinced the state of California to send him on a
long research expedition to study propagation methods in Europe’s
legendary wine growing regions. What he saw there convinced Haraszthy
that Sonoma Valley's red, gravelly soil offered the perfect conditions
for grapes whose wines would rival Europe's. Haraszthy helped found the
state’s first official winery, Buena Vista Winery. Others quickly
followed, and by 1876 the Valley was producing more than 2.3 million
gallons a year.
But Sonoma soon had to contend with a worldwide epidemic:
the phylloxera vitifoliae, an aphid-like root parasite that had begun to
ravage and kill vines. Not until resistant strains of native California
vines were discovered in Sonoma and Napa was the blight alleviated.
For some decades in the late 19th century, Sonoma Valley lay
more or less isolated. In the 1880s, the town of Sonoma languished, and
the Plaza fell into a state of neglectwild with weeds and overrun with
cattle. The Mission decayed and deteriorated. Transportation was
infrequent and slow. Boats from San Francisco took a day’s travel, and
not until 1890 did a standard gauge railroad run through the Valley.
This line ran along Spain Street, and included a depot on the Plaza, a
turntable and engine house.
As the wine industry began recover from phylloxera and renew
itself, Sonoma life picked up again in the 1890s--with many resorts
springing up after a hot water source was found at Boyes Hot Springs.
Trains brought droves of visitors to the resorts. Electric light arrived
in 1895. Author Jack London came to the Valley in 1904 and mythologized
it in his novel, The Valley of the Moon. London settled in Glen Ellen,
where he undertook the construction of a huge mansion that burned down
before he and his wife could ever move in. Some 40 acres of his London
estate, including the ruined manse, are now preserved as a California
historical park.
The Sonoma City Hall was dedicated in 1908 (shown in the
picture at the top of the page) and carefully built with four identical
facades--so that merchants on all sides of the Plaza could claim that it
faced them. During World War I, the Valley sent 117 of its sons to war:
only 98 of them returned.
The sacrifices given and bravery shown by these Sonomans is
now forever commemorated by Sonoma Valley’s stately Veterans Cemetery,
the centerpiece of which is the recently completed Veterans Memorial
sculptured Star Fountain. Just beyond the Veterans Cemetery lies the
much older Mountain Cemetery.Deeded by General Vallejo himself and
founded in 1841 the cemetery winds up the pastoral, tree-strewn slopes
of Schocken Hill, and serves as the resting place for countless
historical figures, from Donner Part survivors to Vallejo
himself--entombed alongside his wife.
With growing taxes on alcohol and increasing restrictions on
its use, for years winemakers had seen a complete ban on alcohol
lurking on the horizon. And in 1919, the onset of Prohibition almost
destroyed the Valley’s wine trade and economy. Winemakers did their best
to defeat or work around it, but were overwhelmed by the national
Prohibition movement. The passage of the 18th Amendment spelled the
demise of many Valley wineries. Some converted to canneries; only
Sebastiani Winery--licensed to make sacramental and medicinal wines--was
able to maintain its winemaking operations. Prohibition’s stunning
effect was evidenced in the Great Fire of 1911, when winemaker Agostino
Pinelli allowed firefighters to pump a thousand gallons of his own red
wine to extinguish the flames.
Despite the "dry" triumph of Prohibition, the area remained
vigorously "wet" during the 1920s, with several illegal stills operating
and selling liquor to the resorts. With the repeal of Prohibition in
1933, the wineries reopened, but Sonoma’s vines had been abjectly
neglected and the Depression stifled potential markets. The opening of
the Golden Gate Bridge made the area more accessible, but there was
little reason for visitors to come.
Like much of America, Sonoma mobilized itself on the home front
during World War II, supporting blood drives, scrap metal drives and a
USO, driving at the wartime speed limit of 35 mph and learning to tell a
Zero from a P40. Mayor C. C. Bean formed a “Home Guard” to protect the
local water supply, posting two armed civilians every night to patrol
the cistern behind General Vallejo's old home.
After the war, Sonoma’s long sleep ended. Outsiders
discovered the Valley, just as the Mexicans and Spanish had discovered
it before them. The population flourished, sprouting schools and a new
hospital. The population surged from 20,000 inhabitants in 1960 to
40,000 in 1980.
But growth was managed. A contentious proposal to construct a
freeway down Sonoma’s center in the 1960s was abandoned. In 1974,
Sonoma adopted a general plan that called for preservation of
single-family dwellings and the Valley's natural treasures, and the town
prevented a multiple housing unit from being built. In the same spirit,
citizens recently voted heavily against the construction of a large
resort hotel on the town's last open public space. Sonoma never became
the political and economic powerhouse that General Vallejo originally
envisioned, but in the long run, this turned out to be a blessing:
unlike many parts of California, Sonoma has managed to retain its
original charm and pastoral beauty.
Photos courtesy Sonoma Valley Historical Society
