Historic Nelson Ranch was a cattle ranch built in 1868 by Camillus Nelson.The house is 5,000 square foot brick Italianate. Both the house and the estate are on the National Register. The gabled roof feature, built in air condition system and brick makes this house unique.  The house was built before cement, and the brick floats on a sand composition.

In 2000 the City of Woodland at the direction of City Council, Army Corp of Engineers and FEMA attempted to build a flood barrier, now known as the "Flood Wall".  The Flood Wall would have flood over 5,000 acres of Class one soil, some of the best soil left in the county and California.

The ranch and house would have been taken by the Corp of Engineers, due to the depth of flooding.  Residents both in the county and city worked together and wrote the Floodwall inititive that prevented the City of Woodland from destroying the 3,000 acres of agricultural land out here.  Out ballot measure  passed by a 70% vote.  We also replaced the Supervisor representing this area trying to support the floodwall.

While we still need to repair Cache Creek, the Historic Nelson Ranch and the surrounding Class 1 soil and neighbors are today protected from the threat of the wall.