Long before the vineyards, this was the country of the Wappo. The Napa Valley Wappo lived in the valley and its surrounding hills for thousands of years, fishing the Napa River and its creeks, gathering acorns in the oak woodlands, and trading across the coast ranges. They knew this ground in fine detail centuries before the first survey stake went in, and an honest history of St. Helena begins with them — not as a footnote to the wine story, but as the valley's first and longest chapter.
American settlers arrived in the upper valley in the 1850s, drawn by deep, well-watered soil and a long growing season. The little town that grew up around a store and a church took the mountain's name, and it was incorporated as the City of St. Helena in 1876. From the start it was an agricultural town first — wheat, cattle, and orchards as much as grapes — set in the narrow, fertile stretch of valley between the Mayacamas range and the Vaca hills, where the road north ran on toward Calistoga and the mountain.
Why People Visit St Helena
St. Helena offers Napa Valley at its most walkable and unhurried — a real town in the middle of the vineyards, with deep wine heritage, a literary past, and the mountain overhead. Visitors come for the tasting country and the scenery and stay for the small-town stone streets and the easy pace. It is refined without being precious, and beautiful in every season.
