Lichau Creek is an
[U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data]
The National Map
, accessed March 9, 2011 southwest-flowing
stream
A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...
in
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County () is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa, California, Santa Rosa. It is to the n ...
, United States, which flows through the town of
Penngrove and discharges into the
Petaluma River
The Petaluma River is a river in the California counties of Sonoma and Marin that becomes a tidal slough for most of its length. The headwaters are in the area southwest of Cotati. The flow is generally southward through Petaluma's old town, ...
.
The original name of the creek is O'Hara Creek and is named after the settler, John O'Hara, who purchased and owned the land through which the creek flows. O'Hara was born in 1833 in
County Sligo
County Sligo ( , gle, Contae Shligigh) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the Border Region and is part of the province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in the county. Sligo County Council is the local ...
, Ireland and settled in Penngrove sometime between 1852 and 1857 and died in 1911 at the age of 78 years. The October 26, 1904, ''Santa Rosa Republican'' refers to this creek as O'Hara Creek.
Course
The creek springs from the western side of
Sonoma Mountain
Sonoma Mountain is a prominent landform within the Sonoma Mountains of southern Sonoma County, California. At an elevation of , Sonoma Mountain offers expansive views of the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Sonoma Valley to the east. In fact, ...
between
Copeland Creek and
Lynch Creek
Lynch Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 9, 2011 stream in Sonoma County, California, United States which discharges into the Petaluma River.
Course
Lynch ...
. Descending initially to the west, it crosses under Sonoma Mountain Road and passes north of Stony Butte. After crossing East Railroad Avenue and Petaluma Hill Road, it flows under the
Northwestern Pacific Railroad
The Northwestern Pacific Railroad is a regional shortline railroad utilizing a stretch of the 271 mile mainline between Schellville and Windsor with freight and Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) commuter trains. Formerly, it was a regi ...
tracks. It immediately bends southward and parallels the tracks through Penngrove, crossing Adobe Road and Main Street.
On the northern outskirts of
Petaluma
Petaluma (Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 census.
Petaluma's name comes from the Miwok village nam ...
, it crosses Ely Road and turns southwestward, crossing Old Redwood Highway, the North McDowell Boulevard Extension,
U.S. 101
U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...
, and Stony Point Road to reach the Petaluma River.
Flora and fauna
A 1968 survey of Lichau Creek
found
algae
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
,
duckweed
Lemnoideae is a subfamily of flowering aquatic plants, known as duckweeds, water lentils, or water lenses. They float on or just beneath the surface of still or slow-moving bodies of fresh water and wetlands. Also known as bayroot, they arose ...
,
cattails
''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in A ...
,
dragonflies
A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threa ...
,
dipterous insects,
caddisflies
The caddisflies, or order Trichoptera, are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the b ...
,
frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...
s,
steelhead trout
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...
, and
stickleback
The sticklebacks are a family of ray-finned fishes, the Gasterosteidae which have a Holarctic distribution in fresh, brackish and marine waters. They were thought to be related to the pipefish and seahorses but are now thought to be more closel ...
s living in the creek.
Bridges
At least three bridges span the creek:
* Petaluma Hill Road crosses north of Old Redwood Highway on a concrete continuous
tee beam
A T-beam (or tee beam), used in construction, is a load-bearing structure of reinforced concrete, wood or metal, with a -shaped cross section. The top of the -shaped cross section serves as a flange or compression member in resisting compressiv ...
built in 1920 and reconstructed in 1976.
* East Railroad Avenue crosses east of Petaluma Hill Road on a concrete culvert built in 1970.
* Adobe Road crosses east of Old Redwood Highway on a concrete tee beam built in 1929.
See also
*
List of watercourses in the San Francisco Bay Area
These watercourses (rivers, creeks, sloughs, etc.) in the San Francisco Bay Area are grouped according to the bodies of water they flow into. Tributaries are listed under the watercourses they feed, sorted by the elevation of the confluence so tha ...
References
External links
{{San Francisco Bay watershed
Rivers of Sonoma County, California
Sonoma Mountains
Tributaries of the Petaluma River
Rivers of Northern California