unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
. Douglas City sits at an elevation of . The ZIP Code is 96024. The community is inside area code 530. Its population is 868 as of the 2020 census, up from 713 from the 2010 census. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Douglas City as a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a 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 counterparts of incorporated places, such ...
(CDP). The
Whiskeytown–Shasta–Trinity National Recreation Area
The Whiskeytown–Shasta–Trinity National Recreation Area is a United States National Recreation Area in northern California.Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who became well known after the
Lincoln–Douglas debates
The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until ...
of 1858.
History
The prehistoric residents of the area were
Wintun people
The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern).Pritzker, 152Karuk called the same people the ''Kashahara''. Local people suffered loss of population beginning with the epidemic of 1842. The explorer
Jedediah Smith
Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western United States, and ...
and his party came through the Hayfork area in 1828, killing several local people to intimidate the others and permit their passage. The Tien-Tien population was further reduced during the gold rush along the Trinity River.
In 1848, Pierson B. Reading found gold along the Trinity; the bar he worked is at Reading's Creek just south of the Douglas City bridge. Reading took out over $80,000 dollars of
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
on his first trip. Douglas Bar was active before 1856. Settlers arrived quickly, workings began on other bars in the area and towns formed at places along the trails for housing and supply. In just two years, every bar along the Trinity and its tributary streams was being worked and agriculture had started in some of the valleys.
Douglas City was settled by Europeans and Americans around 1850 as a mining and supply town.
The Natural Bridge (associated more with Hayfork than Douglas City) was the site of the Bridge Gulch Massacre in March 1852. Trinity Sheriff William H. Dixon and a number of men set out to catch the individuals (thought to be Wintu Indians) who killed a well-liked local butcher by the name of J. R. Anderson. There should be a note of sarcasm that most white men who died by the hands of Native Americans were “well-liked” or “well-known”. The posse never found the assailants of Anderson, but after two days of tracking, did find another (and much larger camp) of Wintu Indians at the natural bridge. They attacked in the early morning hours and killed nearly every man, woman, and child. Accounts vary, but the numbers usually trend toward 150 killed with one to three children surviving.
The streams and hillsides of the area suffered during the
Great Flood of 1862
The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows in the very high elevations that began in ...
.
Gold panning
Gold panning, or simply ''panning'', is a form of placer mining and traditional mining that extracts gold from a placer deposit using a pan. The process is one of the simplest ways to extract gold, and is popular with geology enthusiasts especi ...
and
hydraulic mining
Hydraulic mining is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment.Paul W. Thrush, ''A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms'', US Bureau of Mines, 1968, p.560. In the placer mining of ...
continued. By 1864, the river bars around Douglas City had produced over $1,000,000 of gold, an enormous sum in 1864 dollars. The first Post Office in Douglas City started in 1867.
Until 1857 all transport to and from Douglas City was by foot, mule or horse. When a private road was built through the area, four-horse
stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
es ran from Weaverville through Douglas City to Redding Creek, Brown's Creek and Hayfork Valley. In 1863 locals formed the ''Douglas City Rifles'' to combat the Wintun; none of their raids caused bloodshed. In 1859, Theodore Eldon Jones (later the first Trinity County Superior Court Judge) started the short-lived ''Douglas City Gazette'' newspaper. Renamed ''Trinity Gazette'', it stopped publishing in 1861 as people left the area for the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
and new gold diggings in
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
.
The Douglas City Library was founded on September 27, 1916 by Maude Marshall who maintained it in her home for both the public and students at the Douglas City school district.
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 the ...
, the CDP covers an area of , 99.95% of it land and 0.05% of it water.
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
deposits near Douglas City have
Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...
,
Ground sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Caribbe ...
and
deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
fossil bones.
Climate
This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 71.6 °F. 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, notabl ...
2010 United States Census
The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...
reported that Douglas City had a population of 713. The population density was . The racial makeup of Douglas City was 639 (89.6%)
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
, 0 (0.0%)
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, 2 (0.3%)
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
, 13 (1.8%) from other races, and 29 (4.1%) from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
or
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
of any race were 47 persons (6.6%).
The Census reported that 669 people (93.8% of the population) lived in households, 44 (6.2%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 0 (0%) were institutionalized.
There were 308 households, out of which 55 (17.9%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 151 (49.0%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 20 (6.5%) had a female householder with no husband present, 17 (5.5%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 27 (8.8%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 5 (1.6%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 91 households (29.5%) were made up of individuals, and 39 (12.7%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.17. There were 188
families
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideall ...
(61.0% of all households); the average family size was 2.65.
The population was spread out, with 109 people (15.3%) under the age of 18, 40 people (5.6%) aged 18 to 24, 129 people (18.1%) aged 25 to 44, 283 people (39.7%) aged 45 to 64, and 152 people (21.3%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 50.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 110.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 112.7 males.
There were 415 housing units at an average density of 16.6 per square mile (6.4/km2), of which 239 (77.6%) were owner-occupied, and 69 (22.4%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.6%; the rental vacancy rate was 15.7%. 514 people (72.1% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 155 people (21.7%) lived in rental housing units.
Education
In 1994, the Douglas City Elementary School had 141 pupils. In 2010, the enrollment for the K-8 school was 114; spending was about $12,000 per student.
Infrastructure
California State Route 299
State Route 299 (SR 299) is an east–west state highway in the state of California that runs across the northern part of the state. At , it is the third longest California state highway (after Route 1 and Route 99). Route 299 begins at US 101 ...
and California State Route 3 junction across the Trinity River from Douglas City and continue co-joined through the town on the way to Weaverville. Steiner Flat Road continues from Douglas City downstream along the Trinity.
Government
In the
state legislature
A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system.
Two federations literally use the term "state legislature":
* The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Sta ...
, Douglas City is in , and .
Federally, Douglas City is in .