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. This pattern has been largely maintained in downtown to this day, despite changes to the central square, now called Old Courthouse Square. 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. The Empire Building at Old Courthouse Square, downtown Santa Rosaīy 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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. Santa Rosa was founded in 1833 and named by Mexican colonists after Saint Rose of Lima. By 1900, the Pomo population had decreased by 95%. Social displacement and disruption followed. The tribe gathered at ceremonial times on Santa Rosa Creek near present-day Spring Lake Regional Park.įollowing the arrival of Europeans, initially Spanish explorers and colonists, the Pomos were decimated by smallpox brought from Europe. Those who entered without permission were subject to harsh penalties. The Bitakomtara controlled the area closely, barring passage to others until permission was arranged. The former Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad Stationīefore the arrival of Europeans, what became known as the Santa Rosa Plain was occupied by a strong and populous tribe of Pomo natives known as the Bitakomtara.

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