Shasta County, California: History
Shasta County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. The county was named after Mount Shasta. The name is derived from the English equivalent for the Shasta people. Their population declined in the 1850s due to disease, low birth rate, starvation, killings and massacres as white settlers moved in. Before statehood the name of the tribe was spelled in various ways. The process of naming the county determined the present version, Shasta. Throughout most of Shasta County the 14,179-foot (4,322 m) peak of Mount Shasta in adjacent Siskiyou County is visible to the north. The mountain was originally within Shasta County, but a section went toward the formation of Siskiyou County in 1852. Another section contributed to the formation of Tehama County in 1856.
In 1992, the Fountain Fire burned more than 63,000 acres (25,000 ha) and destroyed hundreds of homes and other structures, including large parts of Round Mountain and Montgomery Creek. More than 7,000 people were forced to evacuate. Estimated losses totaled $105.6 million (equivalent to about $211.3 million in 2024).
Shasta has served as the epicenter of the revived Jefferson State proposal since 2016 which wants to have Northern California and Southern Oregon form a new State. The movement is associated with the Republican Party as its supporters argue that the Democratic controlled legislatures of both states have ignored the needs of the rural parts of their states.
The Fountain Wind project, proposed by energy firm ConnectGEN LLC, includes up to 71 wind turbines, 679 feet (207 m) tall, with the capacity to generate 216 megawatts of electricity. In 2021, the Shasta County Planning Commission voted unanimously to reject the project's use permit, followed by an appeal to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors that similarly resulted in a 4–1 vote to deny the appeal. Wildfire risks and firefighting challenges, among other issues, were given as a primary reason for the rejection of the project. In early 2023, ConnectGen resubmitted its application to the California Energy Commission under Assembly Bill 205 which established a new certification program for non-fossil-fuel powered plants of 50 megawatts or more and related facilities.