Coast Miwok, Southern Pomo, and Wappo people had lived in the Sonoma Valley — Jack London's "Valley of the Moon" — for thousands of years before any of this. Father José Altimira raised Mission San Francisco Solano on the north edge of what would become the plaza on July 4, 1823 — the twenty-first, last, and northernmost of the California missions and the only one founded under Mexican rather than Spanish rule. The mission was secularized in 1834. General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo arrived from Monterey the following year and in 1835 laid out the Mexican pueblo of Sonoma around an eight-acre plaza, building barracks on the north side and his own home, Lachryma Montis, just west of town. Twelve years later, the Bear Flag Party rode in. After the United States took California in 1848 and statehood followed on September 9, 1850, Sonoma settled into its second chapter — agriculture, wine, and the railroad. Agoston Haraszthy founded Buena Vista Winery just east of town in 1857, planting European Vitis vinifera vines and earning the title father of California viticulture. The city formally incorporated in 1883.
Where the California state flag was born — Sonoma Plaza, June 14, 1846. Before sunrise on June 14, 1846, about thirty American settlers rode south out of the Sacramento Valley, crossed into the Mexican pueblo of Sonoma, and took General Mariano Vallejo into custody at his home on the north edge of the town's eight-acre plaza. They had with them a strip of unbleached cotton on which one of them, William Todd, had hand-painted a grizzly bear, a five-pointed star, a red bar at the bottom, and the words "California Republic." They raised that flag over Sonoma Plaza and declared an independent republic — the only republic California has ever had. It lasted twenty-five days. On July 9, 1846, the United States flag was raised over the same plaza, ending the California Republic and folding Alta California into the Mexican-American War. The hand-painted Bear Flag became the basis of the state flag of California, formally adopted in 1911. Sonoma Plaza is still the largest town plaza in California — and the Bear Flag still flies there on the anniversary every June.
Why People Visit Sonoma California
Sonoma is the rare California town where the state's earliest chapters are still standing on the same square. Visitors come for the Plaza — the largest town plaza in California — and the adobes that ring it. They come for the Bear Flag Monument and the story of the 25-day California Republic. They come for Mission San Francisco Solano, the last of the California missions. They come for Buena Vista and the Sonoma Valley AVA, where California's premium wine country began. And they come because Sonoma is, in the most literal way, where California started.
