Neighborhoods: Five historical facts about Healdsburg

Prunes

Although Healdsburg today is surrounded by magnificent vineyards and wineries, grapes weren’t always its primary crop. According to the Healdsburg Museum, prunes were Healdsburg’s “most important industry” by 1930 and through the 1970s. By 1936, Healdsburg was called the “Buckle of the Prune Belt,” with plum trees taking over more than 24,000 acres in the area.

The city even sponsored a semi-professional baseball team, the Healdsburg Prune Packers in the 1920s and early ’30s. The Prune Packers are still take to the diamond today under the same name.

By the 1970s and 1980s most farmers moved to wine grapes, the county’s top agricultural crop to this day. Most prune orchards were removed by the 1980s, when the wine industry dominated.

Namesake

Healdsburg is named after Harmon Heald (1824-1858), an entrepreneur who opened a general store and post office during the 1850s and planned for the town’s Spanish-style plaza. He initially moved to California from the Midwest after the 1849 Gold Rush.

Plaza

What we know now as the Healdsburg Plaza was once the site of Ka’le, a Pomo Indian village in a forest north of a small lake that used to exist, according to an essay by former Healdsburg Museum director Hannah Clayborn.

A few hundred years ago there were many varieties of trees and bushes in the Plaza area that provided nuts and berries for the Pomo tribe.

Many years later, Harmon Heald made a plan to design the town’s Spanish-style plaza. Most recently in 2013, the magazine and website, Travel and Leisure, named the town's plaza as one of "America's Most Beautiful Town Squares."

Dry Creek Valley

In the Dry Creek Valley, located northwest of Healdsburg, there are some grapes planted over a century ago that are still thriving today. Best known for Zinfandel, the valley attracted settlers during the mid-19th century. According to the Winegrowers of Dry Creek Valley, there were “nine wineries and 883 acres of vineyards” by the late 1880s and there are currently over 70 wineries today.

Fitch Mountain

Fitch Mountain is the ancestral home of the Southern Pomo. It was named after Henry Delano Fitch (1798-1849), a San Diego trader and a ship captain who acquired the mountain in the 1840s as part of the 48,800-acre Rancho Sotoyome land grant with Mexico. Fitch died of illness before he could make it to Sonoma County, but he had family members settle here.