Editing Napa, California (section)

===Post-Conquest era===
[[File:06817-Napa-1905-State Hospital-Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|[[Napa State Hospital]] opened in 1875.]]
Prior to the American [[Conquest of California]], Napa Valley was in California's District of Sonoma. At the time, its boundaries also included Lake County to the north. By this time, the indigenous people were either working as field laborers or living in small bands in the hills surrounding the valley. Tensions between the white settlers and Native Americans broke into war in 1850, resulting in soldiers hunting down and massacring all the natives they could find, driving the remainder north toward Clear Lake.<ref name="AutoCK-6"/> By 1870, the Native American population consisted of only a few laborers and servants working for the white settlers.

The City of Napa was founded by [[Nathan Coombs]] in 1847.<ref name="AutoCK-7"/> General [[Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo]] had paid to survey for a township downriver at Soscol Landing, where riverboats could turn around prior to Napa's founding. Instead, the Napa town site was surveyed on property Coombs had received from Nicolas Higuera, original holder of the [[Rancho Entre Napa]], a [[Ranchos of California|Mexican land grant]]. The first record of a ship navigating the river was the ''Susana'' in 1842, though by 1850 the ''Dolphin'' became the first passenger steamship to navigate the [[Napa River]] in order to open another path of commerce.

In the mid-1850s, Napa's Main Street rivaled that of many larger cities, with as many as 100 saddle horses tied to the fences on an average afternoon. [[John Patchett]] opened the first commercial winery in the county in 1859.<ref name="AutoCK-9"/> The ''[[Napa Valley Register]]'', founded by J.I. Horrell and L. Hoxie Strong, made its debut on August 10, 1863, with weekly publications until becoming a daily newspaper in 1872.<ref name="AutoCK-10"/>
[[File:Napa_Opera_House,_1018-1030_Main_St.,_Napa,_CA_9-5-2010_2-32-51_PM.JPG|thumb|left|[[Napa Valley Opera House]], built in 1879<ref>{{Cite web |title=National Register #73000414: Napa Opera House in Napa, California |url=https://noehill.com/napa/nat1973000414.asp |access-date=November 29, 2022 |website=noehill.com}}</ref>]]
The [[California Gold Rush]] of the late 1850s expanded Napa City. A tent city was erected along Main Street. Many cattle ranches were maintained, and the lumber industry had greatly expanded. Sawmills in the valley were in operation cutting up timber that was hauled by team to Napa and then shipped out on the river to [[Benicia, California|Benicia]] and [[San Francisco]].
[[File:Sam Kee Laundry Building, 1245 Main St., Napa, CA 9-5-2010 6-50-03 PM (cropped).JPG|thumb|The [[Sam Kee Laundry Building|Sam Kee Laundry]], built 1875, is the oldest commercial building in Napa.]]
In 1858, the great silver rush began in Napa Valley, and miners eagerly flocked to the eastern hills. In the 1860s, mining carried on, in a large scale, with quicksilver mines operating in many areas of Napa County. The most noted mine was the Silverado Mine, near the summit of [[Mount Saint Helena]]. At this time, the first wave of rural, foreign laborers from coastal villages of China's Canton province arrived in California and at Napa County mines. A settlement for Chinese laborers in Napa was established in the early 1860s. At its peak from the 1880s to the early 1900s, the Chinese population grew to a population of over 300 people.<ref name="AutoCK-12"/>

In 1869, F. A. Sawyer established Sawyer Tanning Company in Napa and was joined in the business by his father B. F. Sawyer a year later. It went on to become the largest tannery west of the [[Mississippi River]]. The world-famous [[Nappa leather]] or Napa leather was invented by Emanuel Manasse in Napa in 1875 while working at the Sawyer Tanning Company.

Napa was incorporated on March 23, 1872, and reincorporated in 1874 as the City of Napa.

The [[Napa State Hospital]] received its first patients in 1876. The [[Napa Valley Opera House]] became popular after its debut on February 13, 1880, with a production of [[Gilbert and Sullivan]]'s ''[[HMS Pinafore]]'', but it later languished and was closed for many years.<ref name="AutoCK-13"/> It was reestablished in the 1980s.