Palamino Quarter Horse Gelding

Ukiah is located within Rancho Yokaya, one of several Spanish colonial land grants in what was then called " Alta California". The Yokaya grant, which covered the majority of the Ukiah valley, was named for the Pomo word meaning "deep valley." The Pomo are the indigenous people who occupied the area at the time of Spanish colonization. This word was also the basis for the city name, as Ukiah was an anglicized form of Yokaya. The first Anglo settler in the Ukiah area was John Parker, a vaquero who worked for pioneer cattleman James Black. Black had driven his stock up the Russian River valley and took possession of a block of grazing land at that locale; a crude block house was constructed to house Parker in order to protect him and the herd from the hostile indigenous local population.