Yolo County is north west of Sacramento County and is known for its fertile soil. The County’s entire eastern boundary is the Sacramento River and its western boundary is a chain of coastal mountains. The plain in between has a rich soil built up from centuries of winter run off and flooding from the Sacramento River. 

The name Yolo is derived from the Patwin Indian word “Yoloy” which means place of the rushes. The entire west bank of the Sacramento River once had great fields of tule rushes, and the County abounded with swamplands, marshes and sloughs. 

The California Gold Rushes of 1848 and 1850 brought an increase in population in Yolo County. Some prospecting for gold was done, but most immigrants realized early on that the fortune to be made in Yolo County was through farming and ranching.

By 1852, the Census of Yolo County showed there were 1,085 white males, 189 white females, 11 Negro males, 3 Negro females, 109 Indian males, and 3 Indian females. (It is likely that many Native Americans were missed in this census.) 

Yolo was one of the original counties when California became a state on September 9th 1850. The town of Fremont, south of present day Knights Landing on the Sacramento River, was named the county seat, as it was the only organized town in Yolo County. Fremont suffered flood damage, and in 1851 the county seat was moved to the town of Washington (later called Broderick) across the river from Sacramento.

By 1857 the population in Yolo had grown, and a more centrally located county seat was desired. A small community on Cache Creek called Huttons’, (named for James Hutton who had built a large house there) was finally laid out and named as the county seat. It was named Cacheville at that time and is now known as the town of Yolo.

In 1860, the county seat was moved back to Washington, but the 1862 floods in Washington prompted voters to move the county seat to the newly organized town of Woodland. Woodland was centrally located in the county in a natural park of oak trees. It has remained the county seat ever since.