Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Shasta, CA

Shasta is a census-designated place in Shasta County along Highway 299, about six miles west of Redding, at an elevation of 843 feet.

The discovery of gold near Shasta in 1848 brought Gold Rush Forty-Niners up the Siskiyou Trail, and Shasta became their base of operations and a major shipping point for mule trains and stagecoaches serving northern California's mining towns.

In its heyday from the 1850s through the 1880s, Shasta was the largest settlement in Shasta County, home to some 3,500 residents, and it served as the county seat.

Shasta declined after the Central Pacific Railroad bypassed it in favor of Redding, and it lost the county seat to Redding in 1888.

The old townsite is now Shasta State Historic Park, a ghost town of partially restored 19th-century brick buildings that is California Historical Landmark No. 77 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

The park's restored 1861 county courthouse now houses a museum holding a collection of 98 historic paintings by California artists, created between 1850 and 1950 and donated by local preservationist Mae Helene Boggs.

Shasta preserves the oldest Masonic lodge in California, along with a post office, a church, and a store amid the ruins of the mining town.

The poet Joaquin Miller wrote about Shasta in his 1870s novel Life Amongst the Modocs, based on his years living in the area in the 1850s, including his brief imprisonment in the Shasta jail for horse-stealing.

The Carr Fire of 2018 damaged Shasta State Historic Park, destroying the elementary school and damaging the brewery and the cemetery.

Shasta had just 1,043 residents at the 2020 census, down sharply from 1,771 in 2010, living in 413 households with about 83% of homes owner-occupied and a median age of 54 years.