Stockton, California

Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. It is the most populous city in the county, the 11th-most populous city in California and the 60th-most populous city in the United States. Stockton's population in 2020 was 320,804. It was named an All-America City in 1999, 2004, 2015, and again in 2017 and 2018. The city is located on the San Joaquin River in the northern San Joaquin Valley. It lies at the southeastern corner of a large inland river delta that isolates it from other nearby cities such as Sacramento and those of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Stockton was founded by Charles Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquired Rancho Campo de los Franceses. The city is named after famed Mexican–American War commodore Robert F. Stockton, and it was the first community in California to have a name not of Spanish or Native American origin.

Built during the California Gold Rush, Stockton's seaport serves as a gateway to the Central Valley and beyond. It provided easy access for trade and transportation to the southern gold mines. The University of the Pacific (UOP), chartered in 1851, is the oldest university in California, and has been located in Stockton since 1923. In 2012, Stockton filed for what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history – which had multiple causes, including financial mismanagement in the 1990s, generous fringe benefits to unionized city employees, and the 2008 financial crisis. Stockton successfully exited bankruptcy in February 2015.

When Europeans first arrived in the Stockton area, it was occupied by the Yatchicumne, a branch of the Northern Valley Yokuts Indians. They built their villages on low mounds to keep their homes above regular floods. A Yokuts village named Pasasimas was located on a mound between Edison and Harrison Streets on what is now the Stockton Channel in downtown Stockton.

The Siskiyou Trail began in the northern San Joaquin Valley. It was a centuries-old Native American footpath that led through the Sacramento Valley over the Cascades and into present-day Oregon.

The extensive network of waterways in and around Stockton was fished and navigated by Miwok Indians for centuries. During the California Gold Rush, the San Joaquin River was navigable by ocean-going vessels, making Stockton a natural inland seaport and point of supply and departure for prospective gold-miners. From the mid-19th century onward, Stockton became the region's transportation hub, dealing mainly with agricultural products.

Carlos Maria Weber was a German immigrant to the United States in 1836. He was born as Carl David Weber (February 18, 1814, in Steinwenden – May 4, 1881, in Stockton) and then went by Charles in 1836 in the United States, first spending time in New Orleans and then in Texas. He then came overland from Missouri to California with the Bartleson-Bidwell Party in 1841 and began to go by Carlos, when he began working for John Sutter. In 1842 Weber settled in the Pueblo of San José.

As an alien, Weber could not secure a land grant directly, so he formed a partnership with Guillermo (William) Gulnac. Born in New York, Gulnac had married a Mexican woman and sworn allegiance to Mexico, which then ruled California. He applied in Weber's place for Rancho Campo de los Franceses, a land grant of 11 square leagues on the east side of the San Joaquin River.