Woodland: Rescued County Seat

Woodland was born in the winter of eighteen fifty-three when Henry Wyckoff built a store in a grove of valley oaks and called it Yolo City. It adopted the name Woodland in eighteen fifty-nine when the name was adopted, suggested by those same oak trees. The county seat of Yolo County at that time sat at the river town of Washington.

Then in eighteen sixty-two Washington flooded badly, and the county seat was moved inland to Woodland. A development boom followed. A newspaper started, rail lines went in to connect Woodland to Davis and Marysville, and the valley's fertile soil drew farmers from across the state.

Today Yolo County is one of the largest crop producers in California, and Woodland has been its civic center for over a century and a half.