Sense of Place: Before it became Graton, it was Gray’s Town

Graton is a small unincorporated town between Sebastopol and Forestville. Its founder, James Gray, came from a family of town founders.

In 1829, his grandfather built a cotton factory and started the village of Factoryville, New York. After making a small fortune in lead mining and then working for a land company, Gray’s father, Hamilton Gray, “laid out the village” of Darlington, Wisconsin. There he ran a thriving flour mill and also was a livestock and land dealer. That’s where James Gray was born in 1857.

In the 1880s, Gray was following his father’s footsteps, also working as a land dealer. Moving away from Darlington, he married Jennie Buchanan. Over the next few years, they lived in Iowa and Minnesota, where their three children were born.

By 1900, Gray was working in real estate in Illinois. The fact that the family rented rather than owned their Chicago home suggests they were not especially wealthy. But after Gray’s father died in 1902, his finances seemed to have improved - perhaps his father’s businesses provided a sizable inheritance. The family moved to California where Gray set up a real estate office in Santa Rosa.

When the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad was extended to Forestville, a depot was established in the hamlet of Green Valley. Gray and a partner bought several large parcels nearby, subdivided the land, and laid out streets named for themselves and their children. Another California town had already claimed the title “Green Valley,” so at first it was referred to as “Gray’s Town.” On the establishment of a post office in 1906, the name was contracted, at Gray’s request, to “Graton.”

Besides founding towns, the Gray family also had a tradition of public service. Hamilton Gray served in county and statewide offices in Wisconsin. In 1908, while Santa Rosa was rebuilding from the ’06 quake, James Gray ran for mayor in what was called, “the hardest fought political battle ever waged in this city.” In a scheme dreamed up by the political establishment, he ran on the fusion ticket as both a Democrat and a Republican. In opposition was the Municipal League, a grassroots coalition of progressives and prohibitionists. The fusion ticket’s core issue was eradicating prostitution, which had been licensed under a “boarding house” ordinance.

When the fusion ticket swept the field, a brass band serenaded mayor-elect Gray at his College Avenue home. Considered “an honest man untouched by scandal,” he lacked “any experience or apparent ambition in politics” and thus was unlikely to disturb the established order. After the “boarding house” ordinance was repealed, bordellos stopped paying the license fee but remained in operation. Prostitution continued as part of an underground economy that enriched many local businessmen.

Gray did not run for re-election and was replaced by another fusion candidate who also lacked ambition and experience.

Before serving as mayor, Gray developed the county’s first golf course. Unfortunately locals didn’t share his love for the game and the links fell into disuse. By 1920 there was “nothing … to even suggest their erstwhile presence.”

On the other hand, his town, Gray’s Town, lives on.