History of Sebastopol
The area's first known inhabitants were the native Miwok and Pomo peoples. The town of
Sebastopol formed in the 1850’s with a U.S. Post Office and as a small trade center
for the farmers in the surrounding agricultural region. As California’s population
swelled after the westward migration and the Gold Rush of the 1850’s, more and more
settlers drifted into the fertile California valleys north of San Francisco to try their
hand at farming.
The name of Sebastopol first came into use in the late 1850’s as a result of a prolonged
and lively fistfight in the newly formed town, which was likened to the long British
siege of the Russian seaport of Sevastopol during the then-raging Crimean War. Britain,
France, Sardinia and Turkey fought Russia in this war, one of the first wars to be directly
reported by journalists and photographers. The Crimean War was also the origin of improved
medical care of the wounded, primarily due to the efforts of Florence Nightingale, who
formed a nursing corps to care for wounded British soldiers. Evidently, many Americans
in the west sympathized more for the Russian than for the British cause as there were at
one time four other Sebastopol’s in California; one in Napa County, renamed Yountville,
one each in Tulare, Sacramento, and Nevada counties.
The apple industry brought a steady rural prosperity to the town and Sebastopol was incorporated
in 1902 with schools, churches, hotels, canneries, mills, wineries, and an opera house to its
credit. The 1906 earthquake reduced most of these early buildings to rubble, but as elsewhere
in the county, the town was rebuilt.
In the second half of the Twentieth Century, the apple industry struggled to compete with other
apple producing regions and gradually declined in its economic significance. With greater
personal mobility and the rise of larger shopping centers in other Sonoma County communities,
Sebastopol changed from a full-service town with a complete range of stores to one with a more
limited range of goods and services.
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Apple Show
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Picking Apples
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Cherry Barrels
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Main Street circa 1956 <click
to view larger photo>
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Highway 12 <click
to view larger photo>
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Main Street Sonoma Bank
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Train Depot
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Train on Main Street
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Train Station
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