Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Knightsen, CA

Knightsen is a census-designated place in far eastern Contra Costa County, in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area closest to the city of Oakley.

Knightsen was founded in 1898 as the Santa Fe Railway planned to lay track through the area toward Stockton; founder George W. Knight became its first postmaster in mid-1899 and built the community's first store, a grocery that also housed the post office when it opened in 1900.

Knightsen's name is a portmanteau of founder George W. Knight's surname and that of his wife, Christina Christensen.

All of modern Knightsen lies within Rancho Los Meganos, a Mexican land grant given to Don Jose Noriega in 1835.

Knightsen is home to the oldest chapter of the 4-H Club in California.

One report counted nearly as many horses in Knightsen, about 1,500, as people, making it as much an equestrian community as a farming one.

Settlers planted the area's first almond trees in the 1880s, and before the railroad arrived, farmers shipped produce by water from Babbes Landing off Dutch Slough.

During the 1920s Knightsen was one of the largest milk shipping points in California, with six dairies shipping an average of 2,500 gallons of milk per day; today its farms grow almonds, walnuts, and sunflower seeds.

The Knightsen Farm Bureau, organized in 1918, built a hall in 1922 that has served ever since as the venue for school graduations, dances, weddings, and community celebrations.

Knightsen had 1,596 residents at the 2020 census, nearly double the 861 counted in 2000, spread across 529 households averaging 3.02 people, with about 74% of homes owner-occupied.