Early history Before the arrival of Europeans, what became known as the Santa Rosa Plain was home to a strong and populous tribe of
Pomo people known as the Bitakomtara. The Bitakomtara controlled the area closely, barring passage to others until permission was arranged. Those who entered without permission were subject to harsh penalties. The tribe gathered at ceremonial times on Santa Rosa Creek near present-day
Spring Lake Regional Park. Following the arrival of Europeans, initially Spanish explorers and colonists, the Pomos were decimated by violence, land grab, slavery, genocide and
smallpox brought from Europe. Social displacement and disruption followed. There are descendants of survivors still living in the region today.
19th century , a
Californio ranchera and founder of Santa Rosa Santa Rosa was founded in 1833 and named by Mexican colonists after
Saint Rose of Lima. The first known permanent European settlement here was the homestead of the
Carrillo family of California, in-laws to
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who settled the
Sonoma pueblo and
Petaluma area. In the 1830s, during the Mexican period, the family of
María López de Carrillo built an adobe house on their
Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa land grant, just east of what later became downtown Santa Rosa. By the 1820s, before the Carrillos built their adobe in the 1830s,
Spanish and Mexican settlers from nearby Sonoma and other settlements to the south were known to raise
livestock in the area. They slaughtered animals at the fork of the
Santa Rosa Creek and
Matanzas Creek, near the intersection of modern-day Santa Rosa and Sonoma avenues. This is thought to have been the origin of the name of Matanzas Creek; because it was a slaughtering place, the confluence came to be called
La Matanza. By the 1850s, after the United States annexed
California following its victory in the
Mexican-American War, a
Wells Fargo post and general store were established in what is now downtown Santa Rosa. In the mid-1850s, several prominent locals, including Julio Carrillo, son of Maria Carrillo, laid out the grid street pattern for Santa Rosa with a
public square in the center. This pattern has been largely maintained in downtown to this day, despite changes to the central square, now called Old Courthouse Square. In 1867, the county recognized Santa Rosa as an
incorporated city; in 1868, the state officially confirmed the incorporation, making it the third incorporated city in Sonoma County after
Petaluma, incorporated in 1858, and
Healdsburg, incorporated in 1867.
United States Census Bureau records show that after California became a state, Santa Rosa grew steadily, though it lagged behind nearby Petaluma in the 1850s and early 1860s. In the
1870 census, Santa Rosa was the eighth-largest city in California, and county seat of one of the most populous counties in the state. Growth and development after that was steady but never rapid. The city continued to grow when other early population centers declined or stagnated, but by 1900 it was being overtaken by many other newer population centers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California.
20th century assemble for their sixteenth annual convention in Santa Rosa, October 1915 By 1900, the Pomo population had decreased by 95%. According to a 1905 article in the
Press Democrat reporting on the "Battle of the Trains", the city had just over 10,000 people at the time. station The
1906 San Francisco earthquake essentially destroyed the entire downtown, but the city's population did not greatly suffer. However, after that period the population growth of Santa Rosa, as with most of the area, was very slow. Santa Rosa grew following
World War II because it was the location for
Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Santa Rosa, the remnants of which are now located in southwest Santa Rosa. The city was a convenient location for San Francisco travelers bound for the
Russian River. '' by
Alfred Hitchcock, in December 2021 The population increased by two-thirds between 1950 and 1970, with an average of 1,000 new residents a year over the 20-year period. Some of the increase was from annexation of portions of the surrounding area. In 1958, the United States Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization designated Santa Rosa as one of its eight regional headquarters, with jurisdiction over Region 7, which included
American Samoa,
Arizona,
California,
Guam,
Hawaii,
Nevada, and
Utah. Santa Rosa continued as a major center for
civil defense activity (under the Office of Emergency Planning and the Office of Emergency Preparedness) until 1979 when the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created in its place, ending the civil defense's 69-year history. Between 1972 and 1973, Santa Rosa was
the site of at least seven murders of hitchhikers. The perpetrator was never caught but the
Zodiac Killer had been suspected as the possible perpetrator. When the City Council adopted the city's first modern General Plan in 1991, the population was about 113,000. In the 21 years following 1970, Santa Rosa grew by about 3,000 residents a year—triple the average growth during the previous twenty years.
Santa Rosa 2010, the 1991 General Plan, called for a population of 175,000 in 2010. The Council expanded the city's urban boundary to include all the land then planned for future annexation, and declared it would be Santa Rosa's "ultimate" boundary. The rapid growth that was being criticized as
urban sprawl became routine
infill development. At the first five-year update of the plan, in 1996, the Council extended the planning period by ten years, renaming it
Vision 2020 (updated to
Santa Rosa 2020, and then again to
Santa Rosa 2030 Vision), and added more land and population. Santa Rosa
annexed the community of
Roseland in November 2017.
2017 firestorm in 2017. Beginning on the night of October 8, 2017, five percent of the city's homes were destroyed in the
Tubbs Fire, a 45,000-acre
wildfire that claimed the lives of at least 19 people in Sonoma County. Named after its origin near Tubbs Lane and Highway 128 in adjacent Napa County, the fire became a major section of the most destructive and third deadliest firestorm in California history. Most homes in the Coffey Park,
Larkfield-Wikiup, and
Fountain Grove neighborhoods were destroyed. A notable exception to the destruction in the area was the protection of more than 1,000 animals at the renowned
Safari West Wildlife Preserve northeast of Santa Rosa. All of the preserve's animals were saved by owner Peter Lang. At age 76, he single-handedly and successfully fought back the flames for more than 10 hours using garden hoses. ==Geography==