Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Gerber, CA

Gerber is a census-designated place in Tehama County, about 11 miles south of Red Bluff, that owes its existence entirely to the railroad.

The Gerber townsite was surveyed and laid out in 1910 on land once known as Logan's Field, after early settler Pleasant D. Logan, who bought 1,000 acres there in 1860 for 20 cents an acre.

In 1916, W. E. Gerber of Sacramento sold the land to the Southern Pacific Railroad, which built an engine house, an icing plant, livestock corrals, and a station, and named the town in his honor.

Gerber was the southern terminus of Southern Pacific's famed South Shasta Division, the rail line running north from Gerber to Dunsmuir in Shasta County.

Gerber's post office was established in August 1916, shortly after the town's founding.

The neighboring community of Las Flores, just north of Gerber, was laid out in 1916 as a home site for the railroad workers employed in the Gerber yards.

The 2020 census counted 1,044 people in Gerber, nearly unchanged from 1,060 in 2010, with an average household size of about 2.9 people.

Local children attend Gerber Elementary School, and the town's median resident age is about 48 years — older than the California average.