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Willits began as a settlement on the land of Hiram Willits, who arrived from Indiana in 1857 to settle in the Little Lake Valley; the town was called Willitsville and then Little Lake before the name Willits stuck in 1874.

Willits was incorporated on November 19, 1888.

Willits sits at the center of Mendocino County on U.S. Route 101, the Redwood Highway, about 20 miles north of Ukiah, at the southern gateway to the county's redwood forests.

Little Lake, as Willits was then known, was the scene of the Frost-Coates family feud, which ended in an Election Day shootout on October 16, 1867 that left five men dead in the street.

Willits had a population of 4,988 at the 2020 census.

Willits has roughly 2,160 households, averaging about 2 people per household.

Willits is the eastern terminus of the California Western Railroad, the famous "Skunk Train," which runs about 40 miles through coast redwood forests to Fort Bragg.

The Skunk Train got its nickname from its early gasoline-powered railcars, which prompted people to say, "You can smell 'em before you can see 'em."

The Willits Depot, built of redwood in 1915, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Every July, Willits hosts Frontier Days, the oldest continuous rodeo and Independence Day celebration in California.