Point Arena, formerly known as Punta Arena (
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
for "Sandy Point")
is a small
coast
The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...
al city in
Mendocino County
Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish for "of Mendoza) is a county located on the North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,601. The county seat is Ukiah.
Mendocino County consists whol ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, United States. Point Arena is located west of
Hopland,
at an elevation of .
The population was 460 at the 2020 census,
making it one of the smallest incorporated cities in the state.
Its main street is part of
State Route 1, California's coastal artery. Along with a number of other Mendocino County coastal communities, Point Arena was associated with the
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
and subsequent
counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. H ...
groups. The economy is largely geared toward serving the summertime
tourist industry
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...
. The city is near the headquarters of the tribal lands of the
Manchester Band of Pomo Indians of the Manchester Rancheria
The Manchester Band of Pomo Indians of the Manchester Rancheria, formerly named the Manchester Band of Pomo Indians of the Manchester-Point Arena Rancheria, is a federally recognized tribe of Pomo Indians in California. The tribe is a community of ...
and adjacent to the recently formed
Point Arena-Stornetta
The California Coastal National Monument is located along the entire coastline of the U.S. state of California. This monument ensures the protection of all islets, reefs and rock outcroppings along the coast of California within of shore alo ...
Public Lands National Monument. Hiking trails with coastal prairie and ocean views can be accessed from Point Arena City Hall. At
Arena Cove Historic District
Arena Cove Historic District is located on the northern coast of California in the United States. The historic district comprises several buildings and structures and lies in a small cove on the Pacific Ocean just to the south of Point Arena in ...
and pier, huge oceanfront bluffs show the power of the interface of tectonic plates.
History
The first European to record Point Arena was Spaniard
Bartolomé Ferrer Bartolomé Ferrer, also known as Bartolomé Ferrelo, was born in 1499 in the region of Levante, Spain, or in Bilbao, Biscay, and died in 1550 in Mexico.
He was the pilot for Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the Portuguese captain who was sent by the vic ...
in 1543, who named it ''Cabo de Fortunas'' ("cape of fortunes"). The cape was renamed to ''Punta Delgado'' (narrow point) in 1775 by lieutenant
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra (commander of the
schooner
A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoo ...
''Sonora''), part of a royal expedition chartered by the government of
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
to map the north coast of
Alta California
Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...
. Later the point, and the small harbor town south of it, were called ''Barra de Arena'' (i.e. sandbar) and finally ''Punta Arena'' (literally "sand point").
The Punta Arena post office opened in 1858, and was renamed Point Arena in 1889.
The first store at Point Arena opened in 1859.
Point Arena incorporated in 1908.
In 1886, Nellie Welch, an 11-year-old girl, was appointed lead operator and had full charge of the
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
office in Point Arena.
Operators like
Western Union
The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...
often hired women because they were cheaper labor than the men.
The Point Arena Cable Station is located in nearby Manchester. Built in 1956 by
AT&T Corporation
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
, the cable station serves as the eastern terminus of several
undersea cables, including the
Japan-US Cable Network and connections to
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
. In 2002, AT&T applied for a permit from the
EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
to connect an existing
fiber optic
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...
conduit to the cable station, since further construction would cause incidental damage to the habitat of the endangered Point Arena mountain beaver.
Geography
The city of Point Arena is located in southwestern Mendocino County at .
Its
ZIP Code is 95468. According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...
, the city has a total area of , all of it land.
The city is built around Arena Cove, a small natural harbor, and is about south of the actual Point Arena, a narrow peninsula jutting into the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...
. This is the location of the
Point Arena Light
Point Arena Light is a lighthouse in Mendocino County, California, United States, two miles (3 km) north of Point Arena, California. It is approximately north of San Francisco, in the Fort Point Group of lighthouses. The lighthouse featur ...
, at the tallest lighthouse on the west coast of the United States. The lighthouse is the closest location on the mainland (excluding
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...
) to
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the isla ...
,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, at a distance of .
Via
California State Route 1
State Route 1 (SR 1) is a major north–south state highway that runs along most of the Pacific coastline of the U.S. state of California. At , it is the longest state route in California, and the second-longest in the US after Monta ...
, Point Arena is south of
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
and north of
Anchor Bay.
Boonville is to the east across the
California Coast Ranges
The Coast Ranges of California span from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains. ...
via Mountain View Road, and
Ukiah, the Mendocino
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US ...
, is to the east.
Climate
Point Arena has cool, wet winters and mild, relatively dry summers. According to the
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...
system, it has a cool-summer
Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
. The average January temperatures are a maximum of and a minimum of . The average July temperatures are a maximum of and a minimum of . There are an average of only 0.3 days with highs of or higher and an average of 14.1 days with lows of or lower. The record high temperature was on August 12, 1947, and September 28, 1966. The record low temperature was on January 21, 1962.
Average annual precipitation is . There are an average of 83 days with measurable precipitation. The wettest year was 1983 with and the driest year was 1976 with . The most precipitation in one month was . The most precipitation in 24 hours was on January 24, 1944.
Geology
![Point Arena from Stormetta](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Point_Arena_from_Stormetta.JPG)
The
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonics, tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is Fault (geology)#Strike-slip fau ...
runs out to sea at Alder Creek near Manchester, about north of Point Arena. The
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
was strongly felt at Point Arena and irreparably damaged the Point Arena Lighthouse, which was then torn down and rebuilt.
Ecology
A variety of fauna and flora occur in the Point Arena area which is a range demarcation for occurrence of some species. For example, the
California giant salamander
The California giant salamander (''Dicamptodon ensatus'') is a species of salamander in the family Ambystomatidae. ''Dicamptodon ensatus'' is endemic to California, in the western United States. The species once additionally included individuals ...
occurs to the south while the
Pacific giant salamander
The Pacific giant salamanders (frequently stylized as Giant Pacific Salamanders or GPS) are members of the genus ''Dicamptodon''. They are large salamanders endemic to the Pacific Northwest in North America. They are included in the family Ambyst ...
occurs to the north. It is also the type locality for the Point Arena
mountain beaver
The mountain beaver (''Aplodontia rufa'')Other names include mountain boomer, ground bear, giant mole, gehalis, lesser sasquatch, sewellel, suwellel, showhurll, showtl, and showte, as well as a number of Chinookan and other Native American terms ...
, ''Aplodontia rufa nigra'', which is federally listed under the
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
as endangered, and is considered a mammalian species of special concern by the State of California. According to the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
, the habitat for this subspecies of mountain beaver lies only within a area around Point Arena. The biggest threat to the PAMB is loss of habitat, and it was officially listed as an
endangered species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...
on December 12, 1991. Much local folklore revolves around this mysterious creature.
The
Point Arena State Marine Reserve & Point Arena State Marine Conservation Area are two
marine protected area
Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conse ...
s that extend offshore from Point Arena.
Sea Lion Cove State Marine Conservation Area
Sea Lion Cove State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) is a marine protected area that lies onshore, just south of Point Arena in Mendocino County on California’s north central coast. The marine protected area covers 0.22 square miles. Sea Lio ...
and
Saunders Reef State Marine Conservation Area Saunders Reef State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) is a marine protected area that extends offshore, just south of Schooner Gulch State Beach and north of Sail Rock in Mendocino County on California’s north central coast. The marine protected a ...
lie south of Point Arena. Like underwater parks, these marine protected areas help conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems.
Sound levels in Point Arena are relatively quiet, with many locations at night-time dominated by natural sounds, such as those of the surf. The firm of Earth Metrics Inc., who prepared the ''Noise Element of the Point Arena General Plan'', found that, even considering the presence of logging trucks on main city streets, composite sound levels rarely exceed 55 L
eq. The maximum acceptable sound level specified in that General Plan Element is 60
Leq for residential areas.
Demographics
2010
At the
2010 census Point Arena had a population of 449. The population density was . The racial makeup of Point Arena was 305 (67.9%) White, 2 (0.4%) African American, 1 (0.2%) Native American, 0 (0.0%) Asian, 0 (0.0%) Pacific Islander, 118 (26.3%) from other races, and 23 (5.1%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 150 people (33.4%).
The whole population lived in households, no one lived in non-institutionalized group quarters and no one was institutionalized.
There were 192 households, 57 (29.7%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 62 (32.3%) were
opposite-sex married couples living together, 25 (13.0%) had a female householder with no husband present, 13 (6.8%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 20 (10.4%)
unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 3 (1.6%)
same-sex married couples or partnerships. 71 households (37.0%) were one person and 28 (14.6%) had someone living alone who was 65 or older. The average household size was 2.34. There were 100 families (52.1% of households); the average family size was 3.08.
The age distribution was 112 people (24.9%) under the age of 18, 31 people (6.9%) aged 18 to 24, 116 people (25.8%) aged 25 to 44, 132 people (29.4%) aged 45 to 64, and 58 people (12.9%) who were 65 or older. The median age was 40.0 years. For every 100 females, there were 109.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 103.0 males.
There were 225 housing units at an average density of 166.7 per square mile, of the occupied units 87 (45.3%) were owner-occupied and 105 (54.7%) were rented. The homeowner vacancy rate was 4.4%; the rental vacancy rate was 8.7%. 189 people (42.1% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 260 people (57.9%) lived in rental housing units.
2000
At the
2000 census there were 474 people in 191 households, including 109 families, in the city. The population density was . There were 218 housing units at an average density of . The
racial makeup
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
of the city was 73.63% White, 1.05% African American, 3.80% Native American, 0.21% Asian, 18.78% from other races, and 2.53% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 28.48%.
Of the 191 households 33.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.3% were married couples living together, 13.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.9% were non-families. 32.5% of households were one person and 8.4% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.48 and the average family size was 3.30.
The age distribution was 32.9% under the age of 18, 7.2% from 18 to 24, 27.8% from 25 to 44, 23.0% from 45 to 64, and 9.1% 65 or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 110.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 106.5 males.
The median
income
Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. For ...
for a household in the city was $27,083, and the median family income was $32,885. Males had a median income of $21,042 versus $15,000 for females. The per capita income for the city was $12,591. About 24.1% of families and 26.0% of the population were below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...
, including 36.0% of those under age 18 and 4.5% of those age 65 or over.
Education
The city has three high schools:
Point Arena High School, South Coast Continuation High School, and the Pacific Community Charter High School. Students are allowed to cross-enroll and take courses at both the Point Arena High and Charter High schools, granting Point Arena students access to a broad curriculum from which to choose, although, due to limited teaching staff, many of the top students are left without options. The choice of the charter school has helped to keep in Point Arena many students who formerly commuted to
Mendocino to attend its high school. Several feeder schools bring students through grammar school before sending them to Point Arena High School or the Charter School, meaning that the schools draw from a large pool of students in southern Mendocino and northern Sonoma counties.
Government
Point Arena is governed by an elected five-member
city council
A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...
which includes the
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
.
In the
state legislature, Point Arena is in , and .
Federally, Point Arena is in .
See also
*
Point Arena Hot Springs
The Point Arena Hot Springs are hot springs located along the Garcia River, 15 miles southeast of Point Arena in Mendocino County, California, in the United States. The hot springs served as a popular resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuri ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Incorporated cities and towns in California
Populated coastal places in California
Cities in Mendocino County, California