Red Bluff, CA

Red Bluff is a city in and the county seat of Tehama County, California, United States. Its population was 14,710 at the 2020 census, up from 14,076 at the 2010 census.

It is located 131 miles (211 kilometers) north of Sacramento, 31 mi (50 km) south of Redding, and it is bisected by Interstate 5. Red Bluff is situated on the banks of the upper Sacramento River where a Historic Chinatown District was established on October 29, 2022. As early as 1852, four years after the first contingent of Chinese arrived in California to work the gold mines during the California Gold Rush, a Chinatown was created to serve the growing population arriving at the last steamboat stop known as Head of Navigation in Red Bluff, California. Located in the northernmost part of California’s Central Valley, the city marks the northern end of a vast contiguously cultivated area that extends all the way to Bakersfield, 400 mi (640 km) to the south. Mildly rugged terrain, used as rangeland, separates Red Bluff from the next crop areas to the north in Cottonwood.

It was originally known as Leodocia, but was renamed to Covertsburg in 1853, then its current name in 1854. Located at the head of navigation on the Sacramento River, the town flourished in the mid- to late 19th century as a landing point for miners heading to the Trinity County gold fields and later as a temporary terminus for the Southern Pacific Railroad‘s northward expansion.