Frenchtown is an unincorporated community in Yuba County, California. It is located on Dry Creek 6 miles southeast of Rackerby, at an elevation of 1447 feet. 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, t…Frenchtown is an unincorporated community in Yuba County, California. It is located on Dry Creek 6 miles southeast of Rackerby, at an elevation of 1447 feet. 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.
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