Early history The
Maidu people were settled in the region when they were first encountered by Spanish and Mexican scouting expeditions in the early 18th century. One version of the origin of the name "Yuba" is that during one of these expeditions, wild grapes were seen growing by a river, and so it was named "Uba", a variant spelling of the Spanish word
uva (grape). On the map of the area made by
Jean Jacques Vioget in 1841, a Maidu rancheria called Buba, noted in
Stephen Powers' 1877 book
The Tribes of California as the village of Yú-ba, was located at the present site of Yuba City. The Mexican government granted a large expanse of land, which included the area in which Yuba City is situated, to
John Sutter—the same John Sutter upon whose land gold was subsequently discovered in 1848. He sold part of this tract to some enterprising men who wished to establish a town near the confluence of the
Yuba River and the
Feather River, tributaries of the
Sacramento River, with an eye to developing a commercial center catering to the thousands of gold miners headed upstream to the gold fields. At the same time, another town was developing on the eastern bank of the Feather River, the beginnings of what later would become
Marysville. By 1852, Yuba City was a steamboat landing, had one hotel, a grocery store, a post office, and approximately 20 dwelling homes with a population of about 150. Yuba City was chosen as
county seat for
Sutter County in 1854. The same year, however, voters decided that
Nicolaus would be a better location, and the county seat was moved there. County voters returned to their first choice of Yuba City two years later, in 1856, and it has remained the county seat since. Yuba City saw its first major influx of population after
World War II, pushing residential areas west and south from the city's original center. Orchards were turned into residential areas as new homes were built for people migrating to the city.
The Flood of 1955 In December 1955, a series of storms dropped torrential rain throughout northern California. The deluge caused all the rivers in the region to overflow their banks and to break through levees. The Christmas Eve levee break at Yuba City was particularly disastrous, with 38 people losing their lives,
The Yuba City Chickens Sometime between the 1950s and the 1970s, a livestock auction was abandoned near the current movie theater, leaving roosters and chickens behind. The roosters and chickens eventually escaped and made their new home in the surrounding area near Franklin Road and Highway 99. There have been attempts to relocate the chickens, but the residents of Yuba City have always shut them down, as the chickens have become a staple and the unofficial mascots of the town.
The 1961 B-52 airplane crash On March 14, 1961, a
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying nuclear weapons, flying near Yuba City, encountered a pressurization problem, and had to drop to a lower altitude. Because of this, more fuel than expected was used, and the aircraft ran out of fuel.
It crashed before meeting with a tanker aircraft. The pilot gave the bailout command, and the crew egressed at 10,000 ft, except for the pilot, who ejected at 4,000 ft, while avoiding a populated area. The aircraft was destroyed. The weapons, two Mark 39 (3.8 megatons each) thermonuclear bombs (identified from declassified Department of Energy films and photographs) were destroyed on impact though no explosion took place, and there was no release of radioactive material as a result.
The 1976 school bus crash On May 21, 1976, a school bus carrying members of the Yuba City High School's choir to a performance at
Miramonte High School in
Orinda, California plunged 28 feet off the exit ramp on
I-680 at Marina Vista Road in
Martinez, California. Twenty-seven students and one adult chaperone died and twenty-three students were seriously injured.
The 1978 missing person case On February 24, 1978, five young men from Yuba City, Gary Dale Mathias, Jack Madruga, Jackie Huett, Theodore (Ted) Weiher and William Sterling, aged between 24 and 32 years, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. They went to a basketball game in
Chico and on their way back drove up to a mountain road away from the main road back to Yuba, where their car had been found later, undamaged and with enough gas to drive back to Yuba City. Four of the men were later found in and near a trailer on June 4 of the same year. Ted Weiher was found inside the trailer, starved, covered in blankets. Inside the trailer there was enough food to supply all five men for about a year, and enough paper and wood to light a fire, but nothing was used this way. The corpses and bones of three of the other men were found outside the trailer, but Gary Mathias was never found.
The 1994 mosque burning Yuba City has been home to a significant Muslim population, including
Pakistani Americans descended from 1902 immigrants. In 1994 the Muslim community completed a mosque that cost an estimated $1.8 million and many hours of donated work. Soon after, the mosque was destroyed by an act of
arson, the first time that a mosque was destroyed in the United States. Eventually the mosque was rebuilt with help of
Sikhs,
Mormons, Christians, and other groups. The story is told in the 2012 documentary
An American Mosque.
The 2020 police brutality incident On April 12, 2020, a retired 64 year old veteran named Gregory Gross was assaulted by Yuba City police officers Joshua Jackson, Scott Hansen and Nathan Livingston after they had charged Gross for driving while intoxicated. Gross was handcuffed and compliant at the time of the incident. After twisting his arm and stating that he was now using "pain compliance techniques," Jackson proceeded to throw Gross face first into the ground, severing his vertebrae and leaving him permanently paralyzed. Jackson was afterwards allowed to retire, while Hansen and Livingston remained officers with the Yuba City Police Department. ==Geography==