Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Yreka, CA

Yreka is the county seat and largest city of Siskiyou County in far northern California, sitting in the Shasta Valley near the Shasta River about 22 miles south of the Oregon border.

Yreka began as a Gold Rush boomtown: in March 1851 mule packer Abraham Thompson discovered gold near Rocky Gulch, and within months some 2,000 miners had crowded into the camp first known as Thompson's Dry Diggings.

Yreka's name comes from wáik'a, a Shasta-language word meaning 'north mountain' or 'white mountain,' referring to nearby Mount Shasta — though Mark Twain popularized a folk tale that the name came from a bakery sign read backwards.

Yreka was incorporated on April 21, 1857, making it one of California's older incorporated cities.

In 1941 Yreka was proposed as the capital of the would-be State of Jefferson, and local rebels theatrically declared the region in 'patriotic rebellion' against California and Oregon before the movement collapsed after Pearl Harbor.

Yreka had a population of 7,807 at the 2020 census, living in about 3,368 households with an average household size of about 2.27 people.

Yreka is home to a campus of the College of the Siskiyous, the Siskiyou County Museum, and the Klamath National Forest Interpretive Museum.

Downtown Yreka preserves a Gold Rush-era streetscape along West Miner Street, the heart of the Yreka Historic District.

Yreka sits at about 2,589 feet above sea level and has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate unusual for its snowy winters, averaging about 11.6 inches of snow a year.

The city's official flower is the Yreka phlox (Phlox hirsuta), a rare wildflower native to the area.