LAGUNA
The Laguna de Santa Rosa is the largest tributary to the Russian River and Sonoma County’s richest area of wildlife habitat. The main channel runs 22 miles from Cotati to Forestville, where it enters the Russian River. The Laguna is a unique ecological system which includes a mosaic of creeks, open water, perennial marshes, seasonal wetlands, riparian forests, oak woodlands and grasslands.
Native Americans including the Coast Miwok, Pomo, and Wappo people have lived in the Laguna for over 10,000 years. The Laguna wetland complex was recognized as a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention in 2011. The Laguna drains a 254-square-mile watershed that includes all or part of Cotati, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Windsor and Forestville. de Santa Rosa
A BRIEF HISTORY OF COTATI
The Coast Miwok people/ culture?
have thrived or lived? in the Cotati
area since at least 2000 BCE.
Documented villages in the area
included Lumen-takala, Payinecha,
and Kotati.
Dr. Thomas Stokes Page purchased
the Rancho Cotate property in
1849 and began farming in the
1860s. His family raised cattle,
sheep, wheat, hay, hops, berries,
and, later, race horses. A century
later it was still not unusual to
ride to school or visit La Plaza
on horseback as Phyllis Donahue,
above, illustrates.
In October 1870, the first railroad
from Petaluma to Santa Rosa was
completed. However, it wasn’t
until 1892, when the Page family
subdivided their ranch, that a
town started to form about one
mile west of the wood and water
stop called Page’s Station.
The year 1968 saw the birth of the
counterculture’s influence on Cotati.
The Inn of the Beginning came
alive and brought nationally and
internationally recognized musicians to
Sonoma County.
In the 1990s, La Plaza Park
was refurbished with a new
bandstand and a new playground.
Currently, the city is home to the
annual Kids Day Parade and the
internationally renowned Cotati
Accordion Festival.
Early History Agrarian History City of Cotati
Modern History Current Day
Sponsored by::
Aerial view of the Laguna. Photo courtesy of the
City of Santa Rosa.
Photo: April 1973 Inn of the Beginning
Calendar, courtesy of Mark Braunstein.
Special thanks to Cotati Historical Society, Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria for sign content and images.
Visit cotaticity.org for more information