The part of north Sacramento that we generally call Natomas was nearly Mass-produced. Hold up, that’s not what we mean: Back when Sacramento was developing in the 1850s, the land on the northern side of the American River was known as the City of Boston, just like the one in Massachusetts.
Interestingly, the Maidu Tribe called the area Natomas well before it earned the New England-leaning title, with the name meaning “north place or upstream people.”
While we were unable to pinpoint what happened to the Boston, California settlement, or when it returned to its former name, we did discover that Natomas grew very quickly between the 1970s and 2010s: only ~8,888 people were recorded in 1975 but ~98,838 were tallied in the 2010 census. We just hope none of them were first-year grad students who came in here regurgitating Gordon Wood until they learned about Vickers, thinking they’re wicked smaht.
