Caspar

History

Caspar was settled in 1857 by Siegfried Caspar, who later sold the land to Jacob Green Jackson, one of the founders of the Caspar Lumber Company, which turned Caspar into a significant logging town in Northern California from 1864 to 1955. Pilings from the mill can be seen on Caspar Beach south of the community. The mill was featured on the cover of a 1938 National Geographic magazine. Multiple heirs to the Caspar Lumber Company sold their holdings to Georgia-Pacific and a pair of private investors in 1989. Ownership of the central parcels, consisting of more than and comprising much of "downtown Caspar", was taken over by the Caspar Cattle Company in 1997. The company's principal immediately offered the land for sale. This offer was facilitated by a professor and team of graduate student community planners from the University of California, Berkeley. The process early on committed to consensus and inclusive self-governance, and identified several sacred spaces, principal among them the headlands, once the site of the Caspar Lumber Company's mill, and managed the acquisition of the headlands parcel in partnership with the Trust for Public Land and the Mendocino Land Trust, which acquired the adjoining beach in 1999. Funded by a California State Coastal Conservancy grant in May 2000, The Caspar Schoolhouse, built in the late 1800s during Caspar's heyday, and expanded during the boom years after 1906, served as a Headstart school and a mail-order company office, then remained empty until it was sold by the Cattle Company to Caspar Community, Inc., the nonprofit entity that organized the community's campaign to preserve its sacred spaces. CCI continues to attempt to acquire the remainder of the property in accordance with the vision of the community since its…

Geography

Caspar is along the western edge of Mendocino County and is traversed by California State Route 1, which leads north to Fort Bragg and south to Mendocino. Caspar Creek crosses the southern part of the community, entering the Pacific Ocean at Caspar Anchorage, a small cove which is bordered by Caspar State Beach. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP covers an area of , all land. The census bureau definition of the area as a CDP may not precisely correspond to local understanding of the area with the same name.

Race & ethnicity