Knights Landing was founded in 1843 by Dr. William Knight, a practicing physician from
Baltimore, Maryland. Knight built on a mound that marked the ancient meeting place of Native Americans inhabiting the regions about
Cache Creek and the
Sacramento River. The site early demonstrated its importance as a steamboat landing and point of communication between the people east and west of the big central river. When the town was laid out in 1849, it was originally called Baltimore, but an agreement over the sale of the new town lots could not be amicably arranged, and the title Baltimore was lost. Knight established a ferry there, which afterwards passed to the ownership of J. W. Snowball. In those days, the ferry tolls were $1 for a man and horse; a team and wagon cost $5. In 1850, S. R. Smith kept a hotel in the settlement and in 1853, Charles F. Reed surveyed and laid out a townsite and was officially given the name of Knight's Landing. That year, J. W. Snowball and J. J. Perkins opened a large general-merchandise store on the Native American mound. On January 1, 1854, Capt. J. H. Updegraff opened his hotel with $10 tickets to a grand New Year's party. A steamer was run from Sacramento for the accommodation of guests. The establishment was called the Yolo House. In 1860, D. N. Hershey and George Glascock erected a brick hotel, which took the place of the Yolo House, that inn being retired to the status of a private residence. On March 25, 1890, the Knight's Landing branch of the
Southern Pacific Railroad was completed and ready for business, and later the completion of the bridge across the river added immensely to the prosperity of the town. The famous and now merged
Southern Pacific Railroad Company once had a line from
Davis, California, via
Woodland, California, through Knights Landing, and the line continued to
Marysville, California, via a
junction in
Yuba City, California. This 1879 map shows the railroad from Woodland almost to East Grafton (which contains Knights Landing): The line now stops a few miles northeast of Woodland. Grafton Elementary was the only public school in the community. It closed June 23, 2009. The area is served by
Woodland Joint Unified School District. In 2010, the Science and Technology Academy of Knights Landing opened on the former Grafton Elementary campus as a
charter school. Knights Landing Cemetery (just south of town on County Road 102) is one of several purported final resting places of stagecoach bandit
Charles Bolles, alias Black Bart. If present, the grave is unmarked. ==References==