Editing Ukiah, California (section)

===Mexican era===
[[File:Cayetano_Juarez.png|thumb|left|upright|[[Cayetano Juárez]] was granted [[Rancho Yokaya]] by Governor [[Pío Pico]] in 1845.]]
Ukiah is located within [[Rancho Yokaya]], one of several [[Ranchos of California|Spanish colonial]] [[land grant]]s in what their colonists called ''[[Alta California]]''. The Yokaya grant, which covered the majority of the Ukiah valley, was named for the [[Pomo]] word meaning "deep valley."{{cn|date=May 2025}} The [[Pomo]] are the indigenous people who occupied the area at the time of Spanish colonization.

Later European-American settlers adopted "Ukiah" as an anglicized version of this name for the city.<ref>Alfred L. Kroeber, [http://soda.sou.edu/awdata/030731c1.pdf "California Place Names of Indian Origin,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720045733/http://soda.sou.edu/awdata/030731c1.pdf |date=July 20, 2011 }} ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology,'' vol. 12, no. 2 (1916), pp. 31-69.</ref>

Cayetano Juárez was granted Ukiah by Alta California. He was known to have a neutral relationship with the local Pomo people. He sold a southern portion of the grant (toward present-day [[Hopland, California|Hopland]]) to the Burke brothers. The first Anglo settler in the Ukiah area was John Parker, a ''[[vaquero]]'' who worked for pioneer cattleman James Black.<ref name="Palmer475">Lyman Palmer, [https://archive.org/details/historyofmendoci00palm ''History of Mendocino County, California, Comprising Its Geography, Geology, Topography, Climatography, Springs and Timber.''] San Francisco, CA: Alley, Bowen and Co., 1880; pg. 475.</ref> Black had driven his stock up the [[Russian River (California)|Russian River]] valley and took over a block of grazing land at that locale. A crude [[blockhouse]] was constructed for Parker so he could have shelter to protect the herd from the hostile indigenous local people, who resented the squatters on their land.<ref name=Palmer475 /> The blockhouse was located just south of present-day Ukiah on the banks of what was known as Wilson Creek.<ref name=Palmer475 /> Following the [[Conquest of California|U.S. Conquest of California]], the region passed from Mexican to American sovereignty.