Napa's Trailblazers: From Pioneer Days to Wine Country Glory

By Ethan Westcoatt

Nathan Coombs was a teenager when he crossed overland from Massachusetts to the West Coast, arriving in northern California at the age of 17 in 1843. He found employment with Steven Smith in Bodega Bay and William Gordon’s Rancho Quesesosi in Yolo County. In the coming years, he married Gordon’s daughter, Maria Isabel Gordon, and arrived in Napa Valley in 1845, where he purchased a piece of Rancho Tulucay. A year later, he participated in the Bear Flag Revolt and acquired 325 acres of Rancho Napa farmland from Salvador Vallejo. He made one more purchase of 80 acres from Nicolas Higuera’s Rancho Entre Napa. It was here that the 22-year-old Coombs designed and founded what would become the city of Napa in 1847.

In its infant years, the Town of Napa, as it was called then, bloomed rapidly into one of the region’s frontier settlements. The first structure was a saloon erected on the corner of Third Street by former Bales Mill miller Harrison Pierce, followed closely by two general stores built by Joseph P. Thompson and Bear Flag Revolt leader General Mariano Vallejo respectively. August 10, 1863 saw the debut issue of the Napa Valley Register, which still publishes to this day. The late 1850s saw Napa through the California Gold Rush and a localized silver rush in Napa Valley, and Main Street was transformed into a tent city. In the early 1860s, additional settlements were erected to accommodate the arrival of Chinese workers who laid the foundation of modern-day Napa with hours of labor. The Sawyer Tanning Company, home of the world-famous Nappa leather, was established in 1869. The Sam Kee Laundry building was built in 1875, and it remains Napa’s oldest commercial building still in use.

Sitting on the banks of the Napa River, a languid body winding from the headwaters of Mt. St. Helena to the mouth of San Pablo Bay, the town was predetermined as a port for shipment of cattle, lumber, and precious metals (and eventually grapes and wine)—an essential installation for much of the California region. The first passenger steamship to navigate the Napa River was the Dolphin in 1850, which paved the way for a transportation economy via ship, stagecoach, and eventually railway in 1868.

In 1861, Charles Krug opened Napa’s first commercial winery, and the fate of Napa was changed. Though George C. Yount is credited with planting the first intentional grape vines in 1839 (to whom the town of Yountville owes its namesake), it was pioneers like Charles Krug, John Patchett, and Hamilton Walker Crabb who sparked a new era of winemaking for Napa. What was once envisioned to be a small port town was shaped by the very enterprising spirit that founded the city in the first place.

Nathan Coombs died on December 26, 1877, in his family home at Rancho Napa. In addition to his extravagant achievements in his early life, Coombs continued to lead the city he founded to the best of his ability. He served on the state assembly for two terms in the first decade of California’s statehood and continued to play an active role in ensuring the well-being of his political party. He encouraged his son, Frank Coombs, to serve as a United States representative from California before his passing. In a joint purchase with his father-in-law, he acquired Rancho Chimiles—a swath of approximately 18,000 acres of land—from the Berreyesa family in 1851, which would come to be known as the Gordon Valley and Wooden Valley. The agricultural area Coombsville bears his name and legacy.

So before you enjoy a glass of critically acclaimed varietal on a rooftop bar or savor a luxurious hour at the hotel spa, don’t forget to take a moment to remember the humble town this once was—it will make you appreciate it even more.