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Anderson Valley is a sparsely populated region in western Mendocino County in Northern California. Located approximately north of San Francisco, the name "Anderson Valley" applies broadly to several rural, unincorporated communities in or near the Fluvial terrace along Anderson Creek and other tributaries to the Navarro River.
It is named after William Anderson, an early European settler to the area.
The climate is tempered by cool marine air. Steep hills and mountains surround rolling to nearly level alluvial terraces. The dominant natural vegetation is a mixed forest of Coast Redwood, various native oak varieties, and Douglas fir. Elevation ranges from sea level to . The average annual precipitation ranges . The average annual temperature is about , and the average frost-free season ranges from 220 to 365 days. Towards the coast the summers are cool and moist with frequent fog, while the interior Anderson Valley proper features a warm to hot summer climate similar to nearby interior regions, with daytime highs occasionally in excess of .
The early European American settlers of Anderson Valley arrived after 1850. They practiced subsistence farming and expanded into resource extraction economies based on timber harvesting and livestock ranching. Some of the first European American settlers included Henry Beeson (who took part in the Bear Flag Revolt), his brother Isaac Beeson and William Anderson, their stepbrother, for whom the valley was named. The first wave of European American settlers included the Ornbaun, Hutsell, Barnett, Clow, Gschwend, McAbee, Rector, Horse, Burgess, Rawles, McGimsey, Witherell, Irish, Holgooden, Hiatt, Ball, Prather, Smelley, McSpadden, Wallace, Conrad, O'Barr, Bowen, Nunn, Vines, Buster, Farrer, Counts, Shields, Lawson, Williams, Donelly, Plaskett, Leonard, Hawkins, Stephens, Robinson, Tift, Perkins, Elliott, Ponad, Gasklii, Brayton, and Connard families.
John Gschwend established the first water powered lumber mill along the Navarro River in 1857, and Thomas Hiatt built the first steam powered lumber mill in 1877 near present-day Boonville. In 1880 a human population of around 1,000 maintained 75,000 head of sheep and 20,000 head of cattle. Commercial production of and hops began before the turn of the century, along with the development of Boontling, the local folk language. The 1940s and 1950s were boom years, when industrial automation and modern highway transportation enabled rapid liquidation logging of the remaining redwood forests. Many commercial lumber mills were established to work the brief timber boom.
By the 1960s the sheep, timber and apple sectors of the economy were in decline. Large tracts of land were removed from production and subdivided. The first commercial vineyards for wine grapes were planted. Marijuana production flourished with the influx of many new residents from the urban counterculture in the 1970s. By the 1980s the timber industry was reduced to two small specialty mills (lath and decorative fencing), the sheep industry to four working ranches of modest size, and the apple industry to a small fraction of its former planted area. In 1989 Sean Donovan of Boonville established KZYX, a community-based non-commercial, National Public Radio affiliated station.
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