Howell Mountain (formerly, White Cottage) 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 the

Vaca Mountains The Vaca Mountains are a mountain range in Napa County, California, Napa and Solano County, California, Solano Counties, California that is one of the California Coast Ranges. They represent the easternmost of the Inner Coast Ranges in north−ce ...

, within

Napa County Napa County () is a County (United States), county north of San Pablo Bay located in the Northern California, northern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 138,019. The county seat i ...

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 lies at an elevation of 1683 feet (513 m).

History

Howell Mountain was originally territory of the

Wappo The Wappo (endonym: ''Micewal'') are an Indigenous people of northern California. Their traditional homelands are in Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River valley. They are distantly related to the Yu ...

people. It was settled by European-Americans beginning in the 1840s. Wine grapes were first planted on the mountain in the 1870s by William Campbell Watson, grandson-in-law of settler George Yount. Numerous wineries and health spas were built in the area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In August 2020, Howell Mountain was evacuated due to the Hennessey Fire, which resulted in the burning of over in five counties, including near Howell Mountain.

Geography

Howell Mountain is located north-northeast of

Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

. For census purposes, it forms part of the Angwin

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 ...

References

Unincorporated communities in Napa County, California Vaca Mountains Unincorporated communities in California {{NapaCountyCA-geo-stub