Cottonwood Historic District

Cottonwood is a small Shasta County town whose historic core along Front Street survives much as it appeared in 1872. The community began in 1852 as a creekside store and ferry crossing for miners and settlers, then moved to its present site when the Southern Pacific Company bought land and built a depot while extending its line north toward Oregon. Front Street is unusually wide because teamsters needed room to turn wagons loaded with lumber and farm goods, and hitching rings remain on the high curbs. Several 19th-century brick buildings line the street, and the railroad depot, now used for storage, still faces it. Beyond Front Street, the old Cottonwood school, now a Grange Hall, and the old sanctuary of the First Baptist Church stand on Bush Street. Lumbering, farming, a flour mill, a creamery and a large electrical substation later supported the town, which became an important northern California shipping and trade center.