Redding trip planner

Redding, officially the City of Redding, is the county seat of Shasta County, California, in the northern part of the state. It lies along the Sacramento River. Interstate 5 bisects the entire city, which has a population of 89,861, from the south to north before it approaches Shasta Lake, located about 15mi north of downtown Redding. Redding is the largest city in the Shasta Cascade region, and it is the fourth-largest city in the Sacramento Valley, behind Sacramento, Elk Grove, and Roseville.EtymologyDuring the gold rush, the area that is now composed of Redding was called Poverty Flats. In 1868 the first land agent for the Central Pacific Railroad, a former Sacramento politician named Benjamin Bernard Redding, bought property in Poverty Flats on behalf of the railroad so that it could build a northern terminus there. In the process of building the terminus, the railroad also built a town in the same area, which they named Redding in honor of Benjamin Redding. In 1874 there was a dispute over the name by local legislatures and it was changed for a time to Reading, in order to honor Pierson B. Reading, who founded the community of Shasta, but the name was officially changed back to Redding by 1880. It has been called Redding ever since.HistoryIndigenous cultureBefore European settlers came to the area, it was heavily inhabited by a tribe of Native Americans called the Wintu. At their height, the Wintu had as many as 239 villages in the Shasta County area.