Frenchtown, Yuba County, California

Frenchtown is an unincorporated community in Yuba County, California. It is located on Dry Creek 6 mi southeast of Rackerby, at an elevation of 1447 feet (441 m).

The town was started by a French man named Vavasseur. He built a hotel and store in 1854 at the site of Frenchtown, which soon numbered some 500 residents and had three hotels, three saloons, two blacksmith shops, a barber shop, and a bakery. However, the town was "virtually abandoned" by 1870, and by 1928 the only remains were an adobe wine cellar, a stone bridge, and an ore-processing apparatus. In 1940, San Francisco attorney Thomas F. Califro bought the Frenchtown site and built a country estate there, using one of the stone rollers of the ore-processing arrastra in his front wall. Today the Frenchtown area is a vacation destination, with wineries of the North Yuba AVA and country inns.