History
When Ukiah was founded by S. Lowry in 1856, it was part of Sonoma County. When the state legislature created Mendocino County in 1859, Ukiah was chosen as the county seat.
Ukiah is located within Rancho Yokaya, one of several Spanish land grants in Alta California. The Yokaya grant that makes up the majority of the Ukiah valley took its name from the Pomo word meaning "south valley". It was also the basis for the city name, as Ukiah was an anglicized form of Yokaya.
The first post office opened in 1858. Ukiah incorporated in 1876. The San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad connected Ukiah to the national rail network in 1889.
Hops were once a predominant crop grown around Ukiah. A refurbished hop kiln can be seen at the north end of Ukiah east of Highway 101, where many of the old fields were. Much of Ukiah's early population was supported by the lumber boom of the late 1940s, with the logging of redwood being a major industry.
From 1965 - 1974, Jim Jones developed the congregation of his Peoples Temple in nearby Redwood Valley. Many of these people accompanied him to South America, where they were involved in the mass suicide at his colony of Jonestown.
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