Not to be confused with Eureka, California, another "Jeffersonian" city.
Yreka is the county seat of Siskiyou County, California, United States, located in the Shasta Valley at 2,500 feet (760 m) above sea level and covering about 10.1 sq mi (26 km2) area, of which most is land. The population was 7,765 at the 2010 census, up from 7,290 at the 2000 census. Yreka is home to the College of the Siskiyous, Klamath National Forest Interpretive Museum and the Siskiyou County Museum. Its gold mining heritage is commemorated by the high school team which uses a gold miner as their name and mascot.
The etymology of the name Yreka had been attributed variously to a landmark Yreka Bakery (a palindromic expression), or a simple misspelling of Eureka.
Yreka was proposed as the capital of the hypothetical state of Jefferson in Gilbert Gable's original pitch in 1941.
Yreka in State of Jefferson[]
Yreka became the capital of Jefferson upon the new state's creation in 1919.
Yreka initially benefited from its status as a capital. Jefferson's first governor lived in a rented house.[1] Its second governor, Charlie "Bigfoot" Lewis (a sasquatch), made the most of the economic prosperity of the 1920s, which included building the Governor's Mansion in Yreka to fit his kind.[2] Similarly, the Capitol, built before the Great Depression, was an ornate building of columns, wings, and a gilded dome.[3]
Nonetheless, Yreka remained a sleepy town for decades.[4] Some of that was a consequence of the governorship of Gilbert Gable, who spent his term between 1934 and 1941 working primarily on behalf of his hometown, Port Orford.[5]
References[]
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