Weed, Ca.

If there were ever a town to be named after “weed” the logic would reasonably dictate that it would have to be in California. It turned out to be true as far as that goes.

The Weed they were named after however had nothing to do with their forward looking laws, instead it was named after Abner.

The town of Weed gets its name from the founder of the local lumber mill and pioneer Abner Weed, who discovered that the area’s strong winds were helpful in drying lumber.

It might not come as a surprise that a town that relies on its natural resources has one of the more impressive backdrops, but just take a look at their town website. Golly.

It’s the kind of beauty you’d expect from a town that, according to its own website, “(I)s nestled at the base of Mount Shasta in the Cascade Mountains and half way between San Francisco and Portland.”

Not everybody wants to stay in the town of nearly 3,000, though.

Weed is also mentioned in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men (first published 1937) as being the town that George Milton and Lennie Small are fleeing from at the beginning of the book.

Oh, Lenny, you big bear, you never had it so good.

The people that funneled into Weed, meanwhile, were the early immigrant workers because of the lumber industry.

While immigrants were a source of labor for the region, they were not always well treated, in fact in 1909 complaints from workers in the lumber industry reached the Italian consular. However, in time the Italian population came to be a cornerstone of Weed civic life. Many streets in the early Italian neighborhood bear names of Italian cities, such as Rome, Genoa, Como, and Venice.

A large number of black-Americans migrated to Weed as well, to work in Long-Bell Lumber Company’s Weed facility after the company closed two mills in Louisiana in 1922. The company promised to advance travel expenses and provide housing for workers relocating to Weed.

Immigrants locating in Weed since the 1980s have come primarily from Mexico and Laos.

Their reliance on logging has declined somewhat. Though perhaps Weed can take small solace in the fact that they have one hell of a thorough Wiki page.