La Grange is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in rural

Stanislaus County Stanislaus County ( ; ) is a county located in the San Joaquin Valley of the U.S. state of California. As of 2023, its estimated population is 564,404. The county seat is Modesto. Stanislaus County makes up the Modesto metropolitan statistic ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Its altitude is 259 feet (76 m). As of 2020 it has a population of 166. It is located along the

Tuolumne River The Tuolumne River ( Yokutsan: ''Tawalimnu'') flows for through Central California, from the high Sierra Nevada to join the San Joaquin River in the Central Valley. Originating at over above sea level in Yosemite National Park, the Tuolumne ...

, and is near the

La Grange Dam The La Grange Dam is a masonry-gravity diversion dam on the Tuolumne River near La Grange, California. The dam was completed in 1893 by the Turlock Irrigation District and Modesto Irrigation District in an effort to divert water into their canal s ...

and the

New Don Pedro Dam New Don Pedro Dam, often known simply as Don Pedro Dam, is an earthen embankment dam across the Tuolumne River, about northeast of La Grange, in Tuolumne County, California. The dam was completed in 1971, after four years of construction, to ...

History

The name is French and means "the barn" or "the farm". The community and a French settlement nearby were also called "French Bar". The community was founded in 1852 around the same time French miners struck gold on a bar in the

. By 1854, there were over 100 buildings in La Grange.Koeppel, Elliot
The California Gold Country: Highway 49 Revisited
Accessed 2009-05-02. La Grange became the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Stanislaus County in 1856. Aside from its French population, the community included a significant Chinatown in its early years. At its height, the community had thousands of residents, but it was a largely lawless town. It was in decline by the time that Knights Ferry became the county seat, as the gold mines were in decline. By 1880, mining had ceased. The La Grange area also included many gold dredgers that operated until the early 1950s. On June 3, 1869, John Muir departed Legrange (French Bar) with a sheep herder and a flock of sheep and headed for the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers. Muir writes famously of this in his book “My First Summer in the Sierra”. In chapter one, Muir describes leaving French Bar and moving with the flock into the hills near Coulterville. He writes, “This morning provisions, camp-kettles, blankets, plant-press, etc., were packed on two horses, the flock headed for the tawny foothills, and away we sauntered in a cloud of dust: Mr. Delaney, bony and tall, with sharply hacked profile like Don Quixote, leading the pack-horses, Billy, the proud

shepherd A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of Pastoralism, pastoralist animal husbandry. ...

, a Chinaman and a Digger Indian to assist in driving for the first few days in the brushy foothills, and myself with notebook tied to my belt. The home ranch from which we set out is on the south side of the Tuolumne River near French Bar, where the foothills of metamorphic gold-bearing slates dip below the stratified deposits of the Central Valley”. In many ways, this experience moves him so much that he writes eloquently of the Yosemite area. His books are read by Americans including President Theodore Roosevelt. Muir becomes the face of a new conservation movement to save Yosemite and create Yosemite National Park.

Historic district

La Grange is now a registered

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in the U.S. state of California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meetin ...

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

. Today, a post office, a supermarket, an elementary school (as of fall, 2015, after a brief stint as a charter school, the public school was closed), and a high school (Don Pedro High School) still operate in La Grange. Also functioning is the oldest church in Stanislaus County, St. Louis Roman Catholic Church, with a cemetery containing tombstones dating to the mid-1800s.

Demographics

La Grange first appeared as a

census designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

in the 2020 U.S. Census.

2020 Census

Notes

External links