
Trinity County is a county located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of California. Trinity County is rugged, mountainous, heavily forested, and lies along the Trinity River (for which it is named) within the Salmon, Klamath Mountains, as well as a portion of the Scott, Trinity, and North Yolla Bolly Mountains. It is also one of three counties in California with no incorporated cities (the other two counties in California with that distinction are Alpine and Mariposa counties).
As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,112, making it the fifth least-populous county in California, and the least-populous of California's 27 original counties. The county seat and largest community is Weaverville.
Trinity County has a rich history of Native Americans: Tsnungwe including the South Fork Hupa and tł'oh-mitah-xwe, Chimariko, and Wintu.
The county takes its name from the Trinity River, which was in turn named in 1845 by Major Pierson B. Reading, who was under the mistaken impression that the river emptied into Trinidad Bay. Trinity is the English translation of Trinidad.
Trinity County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. Parts of the county were ceded to Klamath County in 1852 and to Humboldt County in 1853.
In the first half of the 1850's the California State Legislature established that the boundaries of Mendocino and Trinity Counties was the 40th parallel north. Both county board of supervisor's hired the surveyor W.H. Fauntleroy to survey the parallel, which he completed on October 30, 1872. The accuracy of the boundary was doubtful, and by 1891 the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors requested the California surveyor-general to survey the line and establish the boundaries between the two counties. The new line, as surveyed by Sam H. Rice and approved by the California Attorney General on December 18, 1891, was found to be 2 miles north of the common boundary surveyed by W.H. Fauntleroy, thereby resulting in Trinity County exercising jurisdiction two miles south of the 40th parallel north. Between 1891 and 1907, both counties claimed that the 2 mile wide strip of land belonged to themselves and not the other, with both counties attempting to levy and collect property tax land in said strip. In 1907, Trinity County sued Mendocino County in a Tehama County court to settle the dispute. The trial court in Tehama County ruled in favor of Trinity County, even though the land was situated south of the 40th parallel and state law stated that lands south of that parallel belonged to Mendocino County. The appellate court upheld the ruling of the trial court since Section 10 of the special act of March 30, 1872 (Stats. 1871-2, p. 766), which concerned this boundary and was the act under which Fauntleroy acted under, authorized the survey of the theretofore unknown location of the 40th parallel north, stated that "the lines run out, marked and defined as required by this act are hereby declared to be the true boundary lines of the counties named herein", thereby making the law in the political code which defined the boundary as the 40th parallel north only a suggestion and not a fact. The legislature subsequently affirmed this decision, with the modern statute defining the borders of the two counties referencing the survey of Fauntleroy as being the boundary between the two counties instead of the 40th parallel north.
Cemeteries
Links