Middletown

A Trip Through History

First there were the Indians, a tenacious tribe called Guapo by the early Californians -- Guapo meaning brave -- but known today as the Wappo. Long before the coming of the European settlers, a band of these hardy people settled at the drainage of Putah Creek and named their home "goose-town," Lok-noma in their tongue.

No one knows when eyes other than Indians' came to gaze upon Lok-noma. Maybe the first to see it was crusty, old Caleb Greenwood, wearing buck- skins, leading wagon trains, and cursing up a storm when he was over 80. He claimed he was bear hunting hereabout in 1826. Or maybe it was Josette Legace, wife of the intrepid trapper, John Work, who camped along Putah Creek in 1833 -- or Salvador Vallejo who came riding up from Sonoma in 1836.

Adventurers and explorers came and went like seasons, but little changed until 1845. Then the Callayomi Grant, including Loconoma (Lok-noma), was ceded to Robert Ridley and the Guenoc Grant, likewise, to George Rock. Rock took up residence in the Stone House, now an historic monument in Hidden valley, then the harbinger of a village called Guenoc, around which Jacob Leese grazed his longhorns. Time passed, gold glittered, and California grew.

OldTown

More rovers began to wind their precipitous way over Mount St. Helena. Ultimately they would wind their way in stage coaches -- and these contrivances of course, had to have their depots. Enter George Farley and a stage stop set smartly midway between Sam Brennan's Calistoga and spectacular Clear Lake, which he aptly named "Middle Station." Follow Farley with Berry who built a hotel in 1870, and instead of Middle Station, you have Middletown, known for its hot springs, hideaways, quicksilver mines, and a string of devotees as diverse as gamy Old Greenwood and glamorous Lillie Langtry. Diverse on the surface yet akin in grit.

Grit: that's the earmark of Middletowners ranging from the Wappo to the dauntless ladies who developed Anderson Springs, from those who mocked the ashes of the fire in 1918 to the unstoppable Earle Wrieden, who served on the board of supervisors for 24 years. Or call it "GooseTown Gumption."

... on the Quiet Side of the Wine Country