Sonoma Valley is defined by its watershed. Stretching from Pythian Road in the north to San Pablo Bay in the south, it is an environmentally rich area which provided the local Indian Tribes with abundant natural resources.

As colonizers arrived, Sonoma Valley’s development was driven by people and industries associated with this rich natural environment.

Mission San Francisco Solano was founded in 1823, the last in the chain of California missions and the only one established under Mexican rule. After the state’s missions were secularized and turned over to their local parishes, people from diverse countries and communities began to move into the Sonoma Valley.