COUNTY CREATED:  25 Apr 1851

COUNTY SEAT:  Nevada City

POPULATION AT TIME OF 2000 U.S. CENSUS:  92,033

EST. POPULATION 2005   98,394

This county was named after the mining town of Nevada City, a name derived from the term "Sierra Nevada." The word Nevada in Spanish means "snowy" or "snow  covered."

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FOUNDING OF NEVADA COUNTY

The following is based on an article by Edwin Tyson, Curator of the Searls Library which was published in the Nevada County Historical Society BULLETIN,Vol. 60, #2, April 2006:

In 1848 an adobe structure was built in then Yuba County between Anthony House (now Lake Wildwood) and Bridgeport. It was called Rose's Corral. From that small settlement the future Nevada County grew.

In September 1849 prospectors found placer gold deposits where Gold Run enters Deer Creek. Dr. A.B. Caldwell established stores along Deer Creek to serve the growing number of gold seekers. At that time the first permanent log cabin was erected in what would become "Nevada" or "Nevada City." Dr. Caldwell built "Caldwell's Upper Store" in October 1849. The miners prospered and more and more cabins and shanties were built through the Spring of 1850. The name "Nevada" was applied to the settlement in March 1850.

The U.S. Census of 1850 reported the population Nevada [City] at 1,067. California entered the Union September 9, 1850 and a U.S. Post Office name "Nevada City" opened in December 1850. Nevada County was created by the California Legislature from Yuba County May 18, 1851.

According to Kirkham's "A Genealogical and Historical Atlas of the United States of America" (Everton Pub, Inc., 1976),  in 1880, known "places" in Nevada County (and their populations) included: