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.
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.
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.
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.
