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About Sonoma Mountain
Geography
Sonoma Mountain is one of the most prominent landforms in the North San Francisco Bay Region of California. It lies approximately 50 miles due north of San Francisco, in southern Sonoma County, roughly equidistant from the cities of Santa Rosa (to the north), Rohert Park and Cotati (to the northwest), Petaluma (to the southwest) and Sonoma (to the east).
The following context map, courtesy of Mapquest.com, shows the location of Sonoma Moutain in the white space in the middle of the map.
The green parkland in the center of the map is Jack London State Historial Park. The summit of Sonoma Mountain, at 2463 feet (751 meters) above sea level, lies immediately east of that park, near the "k" in "Rohnert Park." The main ridges of the mountain run diagonally from northwest to southeast.
The mountain forms part of three distinct watersheds. The eastern creeks (Graham, Carriger, Rogers, etc.) drain into the Sonoma Valley and into San Francisco Bay via Sonoma Creek. The western creeks (Adobe, Lynch, Lichau, etc.) drain into the Petaluma Valley, and also into San Francisco Bay via the Petaluma River. Several northwestern creeks (Copeland, Crane, Matanzas) drain into the Laguna de Santa Rosa and on to the Pacific Ocean via the Russian River. All the above-mentioned creeks have their headwaters on upper Sonoma Mountain.
History
Sonoma Mountain was part of the ancestral homeland of the Coast Miwok people, and figured prominently in their creation story.
With the arrival of Europeans in the early 1800s, southern Sonoma County became the farthest outpost of the Spanish Empire, facing the Russian settlements along the Sonoma Coast. After Mexico gained independence, Sonoma Mountain was at the center of the vast landholdings of General Mariano Vallejo. Historic buildings of that period have been preserved at the Petaluma Adobe and Sonoma Barracks, both part of State Historic Parks.
The late 1840s brought California's brief independence, then annexation to the United States, followed by the Gold Rush, which brought thousands of newcomers to Northern California. Homesteaders and ranchers came to Sonoma Mountain, which also saw some mining activity for coal and other minerals during that period.
In the early 1900s, writer Jack London purchased and lived on a large ranch on northeastern Sonoma Mountain. His ranch is preserved as Jack London State Historic Park, whose 800 acres account for the only public parkland on the mountain at present.