Two older landmarks anchor the town's history. North of the center, the Bale Grist Mill — a water-powered flour mill built in 1846, with a towering red waterwheel — still stands as a state historic park, a relic of the valley's pre-wine farming days. And at the edge of town rises Greystone, a vast stone cellar finished in 1889 and now home to the Culinary Institute of America's western campus. Along Main Street, the squat stone storefronts of the 1880s give St. Helena the look it is known for: a small, solid, hand-built town in the middle of the vines.
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.
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.
