Smartsville is a

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 ...

Yuba County, California Yuba County (; Maidu: ''Yubu'') is a county located in north-central Central Valley, California, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 81,575. Yuba County is included in the Yuba City metropolitan statistical area, ...

, United States, in the foothills of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

. It is one of the many historic towns in California's gold country, and is today a

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in the U.S. state of California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meetin ...

. Located at an altitude of , Smartsville lies about east-northeast of Marysville, along State Route 20. The population was 177 at the 2010 census.

History

Smartsville is named for James Smart, a local hotel proprietor during the days of the Gold Rush. In the spring of 1856, Smart built a hotel. Extensive

placer mining Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit mining or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment. Placer mining is frequently used for precious metal deposits (particularly ...

tailings In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...

remain throughout the area. A post office was opened at Smartsville in 1865. Due to a ruling by the U.S. Post Office Department (now the

U.S. Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...

), Smartsville became Smartville in 1909; this change was strengthened by a similar ruling by the

United States Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a Federal government of the United States, federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geogr ...

in 1947. In August 2008, after petitions from residents to restore the original name, the Board on Geographic Names ruled in favor of the form "Smartsville". The town and name change were featured in an episode of '' California's Gold with Huell Howser''. The Smartville Cemetery is a historic

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

Geology

Smartville gave its name to the Smartville Block, a co-extensive oceanic geologic

terrane In geology, a terrane (; in full, a tectonostratigraphic terrane) is a crust fragment formed on a tectonic plate (or broken off from it) and accreted or " sutured" to crust lying on another plate. The crustal block or fragment preserves its d ...

formed by

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

in the western foothills of the central Sierra Nevada and west into the Central Valley. The presence of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

in the

Mother Lode Mother lode is a principal vein or zone of gold or silver ore. The term is also used colloquially to refer to the real or imaginary origin of something valuable or in great abundance. Term The term probably came from a literal translation of ...

Gold Country The Gold Country (also known as Mother Lode Country) is a historic region in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, that is primarily on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. It is famed for the mineral deposits and gold mines t ...

was found to coincide with the suture line of the Smartville Block terrane and the North American Plate.

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the CDP covers an area of 0.7 square miles (1.9 km), all of it land.

Climate

According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Smartsville has a

warm-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...

, abbreviated "Csa" on climate maps.

Demographics

The 2020 United States census reported that Smartsville had a population of 185. The population density was . The racial makeup of Smartsville was 145 (78.4%)

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 2 (1.1%)

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0 (0.0%) Native American, 9 (4.9%) Asian, 0 (0.0%)

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, 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 th ...

, 6 (3.2%) from other races, and 23 (12.4%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10 persons (5.4%). The whole population lived in households. There were 72 households, out of which 24 (33.3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 43 (59.7%) were married-couple households, 6 (8.3%) were

cohabiting Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not legally married live together as a couple. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become incr ...

couple households, 7 (9.7%) had a female householder with no partner present, and 16 (22.2%) had a male householder with no partner present. 12 households (16.7%) were one person, and 7 (9.7%) were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.57. There were 53

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

(73.6% of all households). The age distribution was 38 people (20.5%) under the age of 18, 15 people (8.1%) aged 18 to 24, 40 people (21.6%) aged 25 to 44, 63 people (34.1%) aged 45 to 64, and 29 people (15.7%) who were 65years of age or older. The median age was 44.8years. There were 93 males and 92 females. There were 72 housing units at an average density of , which were all occupied, 62 (86.1%) by homeowners, and 10 (13.9%) by renters.

References

External links

Smartsville Historic Church history
{{authority control Census-designated places in Yuba County, California Populated places in the Sierra Nevada (United States) Census-designated places in California