A little bit of Sonoma history

by Charles Christian
(Rohnert Park)

Valley of the Moon Fresco
Photo added by Suzi Rosenberg

The towns near Sonoma Ca - Boyes Hot Springs, Fetters Hot Springs and Agua Caliente are just north of Sonoma and were popular hot springs 100-150 years ago for people who had aliments. All over the world people then thought that different hot springs would fix different problems and that is where you would go "to take the waters".

Sonoma is at the southern end of the beautiful Valley of the Moon, (Indian name in English) full of wineries and farms. The northern end
of it is called Rincon Valley.

Americans who lived in the area in 1846, what is now California, formed a militia group that seized the town when we went to war with Mexico in 1846 for a couple years. If we did not get Calif. then we would all be
speaking Spanish today.

Some of the Americans came early in the 1800's and married a Mexican girl, became Catholic, and then if General Vallejo liked them, he would give them land grants - up to 25,000 acres - north of the bay. Santa Rosa used to belong to his mother-in-law, who had 25,000 acres.

I came in 1967 and did not even get a tee shirt.

The Americans made it a republic for six weeks and then a force of U.S. Army arrived from Monterey after landing there and took down their Bear Flag from the plaza and raised the American flag.

This area has flown six flags since the white man first came to the area: English, Russian, Spanish, Mexican, Bear Flag Republic, and U.S.