Alton (formerly, Hansen) is an

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 ...

in Humboldt County,

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 ...

. It is located south-southeast of

Fortuna Fortuna (, equivalent to the Greek mythology, Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Religion in ancient Rome, Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular thr ...

, at an elevation of . Alton is located along

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...

and State Route 36. The ZIP Code is 95540. The community is inside

area code 707 Area codes 707 and 369 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the northwestern part of the U.S. state of California. The area codes serve part of the northern San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the North Coast. ...

History

The name Hansen honors Mads P. Hansen, its first postmaster. The Hansen post office opened in 1888, changed its name to Alton in 1889, and closed for good in 1895. The origin of the name Alton is disputed. Some say Alton was a corruption of its founder's name, Alta Oliver. Another source indicates the community was named in 1862 for the founder's hometown of

Alton, Illinois Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend (Illinois), Riv ...

. The Eel River and Eureka Railroad was built in 1884 to provide Humboldt Bay shipping access to lumber mills and farms of the lower Eel River. In 1885, Pacific Lumber Company built a rail connection from their

Scotia Scotia is a Latin placename derived from ''Scoti'', a Latin name for the Gaels, first attested in the late 3rd century.Duffy, Seán. ''Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia''. Routledge, 2005. p. 698. The Romans referred to Ireland as "Scotia" aro ...

lumber mill to the Eel River and Eureka Railroad at Alton. Alta Oliver laid out the town at the junction of the two railroads in 1887. The California Midland Railroad was formed in 1902 to extend rail service from Alton up the Van Duzen River to Carlotta.

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

merged Alton's railroads into the San Francisco and Northwestern Railway in 1903; and Alton was linked to the national rail network by completion of the

Northwestern Pacific Railroad The Northwestern Pacific Railroad is a mainline railroad from the former ferry connections in Sausalito, California north to Eureka, with a connection to the national railroad system at Schellville. The railroad has gone through a complex h ...

in 1914. Between 1969 and 1989, Frank Bayliss operated his

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

Alton & Pacific Railroad near the town.

Politics

In the

state legislature A state legislature is a Legislature, legislative branch or body of a State (country subdivision), political subdivision in a Federalism, federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of ...

, Alton is in , and . Federally, Alton is in .

References

Unincorporated communities in Humboldt County, California Unincorporated communities in California 1884 establishments in California {{HumboldtCountyCA-geo-stub

History

Politics

See also

References