COUNTY OF MERCED history

In 1829 Ewing Young led a party of trappers, including Kit Carson, through the area.

A third visitor was Joseph Walker who, in 1833, was the first to see the treat Yosemite Valley.

The year 1844 brought General John C. Fremont into the valley to gain geographical information.

In 1848 they built an adobe home in the Pass, which was the first building in this area.

With the gold discovery in 1849 miners streamed over the Pacheco Pass on their way from San Francisco to the goldfields in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The census of 1850 gave Mariposa County 4379, and that was for the county which extended from the Coast Range to the State's eastern boundary, and from approximately the present northern line of Mariposa and Merced to the vicinity of San Bernardino.

The census of 1850 gave Mariposa County 4379, and that was for the county which extended from the Coast Range to the State's eastern boundary, and from approximately the present northern line of Mariposa and Merced to the vicinity of San Bernardino. It is a matter of history that Stanislaus County was formed in 1854, and it is also a matter of history that an attempt was made- and failed- to include the settlements along the Merced in that county.

Merced County was formed in 1855 from parts of Mariposa County.

In the summer of 1858, the Butterfield Overland Stage began traveling over the Pacheco Pass and across the valley on their 2,000-mile route between San Francisco and the Missouri River.

The 1860 census gave a greatly reduced Mariposa County 6243.

In 1863 they purchased their first acreage near Dos Palos.

Dairying in this area was introduced by C. H. Wiley, who in 1868 walked from Mann County to his new home near Los Banos, driving 11 Jersey heifers ahead of him.

Merced, city, seat (1872) of Merced county, central California, United States It is situated on Bear Creek in the San Joaquin Valley, about 55 miles (90 km) northwest of Fresno.

By 1874, the Valley was producing 7 1/2 million bushels of wheat.

In 1877 Jedediah Smith and 17 men (of whom only 3 survived the journey) spent all the summer setting traps in the valley.

Merced was incorporated in 1889 and operates under the Council-Manager form of government.

More than 4,000 square miles (10,500 square km) of the desert lie below sea level, including the 300-square-mile (800-square-km) Salton Sea, a lake with no outlet that was created in 1905–07 when the nearby Colorado River broke out of its channel.

In the east-central region is the Trans-Sierra desert, which extends along the sheer east escarpment of the Sierra Nevada range and comprises part of the vast interstate Great Basin of the Basin and Range Province. Its largest towns are in the Owens Valley, which was a fertile farmland until its groundwater flow was diverted to Los Angeles through a mammoth series of conduits built in 1908–13.

First published in 1925

The California State Water Project, launched in 1960, is the largest water-transfer system ever undertaken.

The last, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978, rises from the purplish foothills of the Mother Lode Country and extends through the ice-carved valleys of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers.

Merced's population has grown faster than the state average since 1980.

Since 1992, more than 400,000 square feet of new industrial activity has started.

In May 1995, Merced was selected as the home of the next University of California campus.

UC Merced opened with its first 1,000 students in September 2005.