Weimar (formerly, "New England Mills" or "Weimer") 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 ...

Placer County, California Placer County ( ; ''Placer'', Spanish for "sand deposit"), officially the County of Placer, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 404,739. The county seat is Auburn. P ...

, located in the Sacramento area. Weimar is located south-southwest of Colfax. As of 2020, its population is 339.

History

The Weimar post office opened in 1866. An explanation of the town's name comes from the Geisendorfer family; descendants of George Geisendorfer, founder of the town. George Geisendorfer was born in the area of

Weimar, Germany Weimar is a city in the German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouring cities of Erfurt and Jena, i ...

. Many of the original inhabitants of Weimar (New England Mills) were also of German descent. Members of the town, and the Geisendorfer family, have testified that George Geisendorfer himself decided to rename the town “Weimar” when the post office rejected the original name of New England Mills. In April, 1919, in the wake of the end of World War I, a resolution was introduced in the

California State Senate The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature (the lower house being the California State Assembly). The state senate convenes, along with the state assembly, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. ...

to change the town's name to Argonne. The resolution was defeated after the local senator insisted the name was not German, but actually came from Weimah, a chief of the Grass Valley tribe of

Southern Paiute The Southern Paiute people () are a tribe of Native Americans who have lived in the Colorado River basin of southern Nevada, northern Arizona, and southern Utah. Bands of Southern Paiute live in scattered locations throughout this territory an ...

Native Americans, who had been hospitable to the area's first white settlers. The senator further stated that postal authorities had misspelled the name.

Geography

By car, Weimar is about 80 minutes from

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...

and about one hour northeast of

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

on east I-80. It is directly adjacent to

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the ori ...

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

stops at

Colfax, California Colfax (formerly Alden Grove, Alder Grove, Illinoistown, and Upper Corral) is a city in Placer County, California, at the crossroads of Interstate 80 and State Route 174. The population was 1,995 at the 2020 census. The town is named in h ...

which is about 5 miles east on I-80 past Weimar. The elevation is about 2300–2600 feet.

Climate

Weimar has a hot-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 ...

(

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 ...

''Csa''). There are cool winters during which intense rainfall with occasional days of snow. It has hot, dry summers with no rainfall in July and August. Snow in Weimar occasionally falls due to its higher latitude, averaging per year, mostly in winter months. Average December temperatures are a maximum of and a minimum of . Average July temperatures are a maximum of and a minimum of . The record high temperature was . The record low temperature was . Average annual precipitation is . There are on average 77.9 days with measurable precipitation. Weimar's Köppen classification and climate similarities to locations such as

Napa, California Napa is the largest city and county seat of Napa County, California, Napa County and a principal city of Wine Country in Northern California, United States. Located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the Bay Area, th ...

and parts of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

make it a suitable region for growing wine

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...

s. Weimar and the surrounding areas of Placer County are home to over 20

wineries A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the cultivation and production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feat ...

Demographics

Its ZIP code is 95736 and its

area code 530 Area codes 530 and 837 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in northeastern and Northern California. 530 was created in 1997 in an area code split of 916 and 837 was added to the same numbering plan area as an ov ...

. As of 2010, its population is 209.

Education

The former Weimar Sanitorium, a Tuberculosis treatment hospital, is now Weimar Institute, home to the NEWSTART Lifestyle Program. The Institute also includes Weimar College, and Weimar Academy, a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

for

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

students, both associated with the

Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sa ...

. It is also home to the Weimar Hills Public School, which offers grades 4th through 8th.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Placer County, California Colfax, California Unincorporated communities in the Sacramento metropolitan area Unincorporated communities in California