Shasta County Analysis

All of the states in the U.S. have subdivisions of counties, or county equivalents in the case of Alaska and Louisiana. The amount of counties in a state depends on how much land there is in the state. Some have well over 200, like Texa, and some have five or less like Delaware. California, which only had 27 counties when it was first gaining statehood, now has a total of 58. One of the 58 counties is named Shasta, a medium sized county in the northern California area at the top of the Sacramento Valley. Shasta county was originally named Redding but was renamed by the legislature before being approved between January 4 and February 18, 1850 (“California Counties”), making one of the first 27 counties when California began its statehood.
It was named after the Native American tribe that lived there and shared its name with the well known Shasta mountain that, at the time, resided inside the county borders. In the natural course of events, Shasta lost some of it’s territory as new counties popped up. When first created in 1850, the county covered what is now considered Modoc county and a good portion of the Lassen, Siskiyou, and Tehama counties. In 1852, a very large part of Shasta was used to create Siskiyou, which also gave that county Mt. Shasta, that was later broken up further to create Modoc county. In 1856, a small portion of Shasta was given to Tehama county and in 1864 Lassen took about half of what was left. That left Shasta county in the shape it is today and explains why, despite its name, Mt. Shasta is not a part of Shasta county. Shasta county is still a moderately sized county, it’s official website declares it to be 3,850 square miles and about 72 of those square miles is water. It is a rather rural county, with three main cities: Redding, Shasta Lake, and Anderson. A good portion of the county is taken up by water, as previously state, with the main water mass being Shasta lake. There are also plenty of rivers, smaller lakes, and creeks. It was established in 1850 that Shasta was a General Law county, which simply means that they followed state law relative to the numbers and duties of county elected officials.
It currently resides in both the 1st Assembly and Senate districts, both of which are currently represented by republicans. Shasta has only recently become a republican county, with a 62% majority in 2012, because before 1980 it had been a democratic county for the most part. An interesting thing is that, a side from Redding, the cities seem pretty evenly split with surprisingly high numbers of people with no party preference. It has five Board of Supervisors, who are mostly the executive and legislative authority in the county. In order of district it is: David Kehoe, Leonard Moty, Pam Giacomini, William Schappell, and Les Buagh. There are ten Shasta Superior court Judges. An interesting fact is that Redding has their own elected department heads of county clerk and treasurer, completely different than the Shasta county clerk and treasurer. Their school district has two areas, with three Board of Education members in area 1 and four in area
2. According to American FactFinder, the estimated Shasta population in 2015 is 179,533 people. That may seem like a lot, however to put in perspective, Los Angeles county has the highest population at 10,170,292 people, so it has a very average population density. It does not seem to fluctuate that much either, since it has only raised 1.3% from 2010 (“Population Estimates”). Something of mild interest is that when the census was last taken of the divide between male and female in July of 2014, it seemed pretty much even at 51% in favor of the females. Compared to the diversity of California as whole however, Shasta is definitely lacking. White people are the largest group, registering at 88.5% of Shasta’s population. Hispanic and Latinos make ups 9%, Native Americans and Asians make up 3% each, and Black people only make up about 1% of the population there. These numbers are somewhat outdated, having been taken in 2014, however it is unlikely to have changed overly much in two years. While over 80% of Shasta has at least a high school education, less than 20% has a bachelor’s degree or higher according to the U.S.
Census Bureau. It is important to note that there are only three fully accredited colleges, one of which is a 2 year college, and one Bible college. Perhaps understandably, NACo(National Association of Counties) states that unemployment is at 7.8% and with 14% of the population in poverty. There are three main industries of employment ranked by NACo are: education and health (22%), government (19%), and trade and transport(19%). They also indicate that there seems to be a job growth rate between 2014 and 2015 of 1.4%. Only about half of the population is in the labor force however, counting everyone above 16 years old. The average household income is about $44,556 with the average value of houses being $213,700. Out of 77,915 housing units, only about 60% of them are being used as of 2015. However, it seems houses in Shasta have a moderately slow turn over rate, since 80% of the population said they had lived in their house for over a
year. In terms of recreation, Shasta is more oriented for people who would prefer calmer activities like hiking, rather than clubbing or large sports games. Most of their recreational areas are national and state parks. At Shasta Lake they offer things like hot air ballooning, wine tasting, horse riding, and sailing.In Redding most of their activities have to do with kayaking, biking, running, or camping. There is also the Sundial Bridge and Shasta dam. In Anderson there is paintball, a few natural parks and museums, and zip lining. Like every county in California, Shasta is distinct and interesting in it’s own right. Though it might not be as exciting as some counties are, most of the interesting things you might find about Shasta has more to do with the mountain than the county, it is still a nice county. It might be a nice place to retire or to vacation to, if you happen to lean more towards the introverted than the extroverted.