Kelseyville is a unincorporated community in Lake County, California,[2] located six miles (9.7 kilometers) southeast of Lakeport,[3] at an elevation of 1,384 feet (422 meters).

[2] For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined that community as a census-designated place (CDP).

Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone were killed in 1849 in an uprising against him by bands of Wappo and Eastern Pomo whom they had enslaved.

[3] The Kelseyville name first appears in records in the 1860s,[11] the result of lobbying on the part of William and Barthena Kelsay, who arrived with the Harriman Party in Lake County in 1861, "in honor of their Kelsey cousins".

The name was officialized by federal authorities when the Uncle Sam Post Office was renamed to Kelseyville in October 1882.

[16][17] In 2020, a group of local community members, Citizens for Healing, formed in order to change Kelseyville's name.

[20][21] The initiative has triggered opposition from another group, which has been campaigning under the "Save Kelseyville" slogan, arguing that renaming the town could be costly and cause confusion.

[20] On July 30, 2024, the county's Board of Supervisors voted to approve a countywide "advisory measure" on the November 5 ballot to rename the town to "Konocti".

[26] On December 10, a majority of county Supervisors nevertheless voted in favor of recommending to the USBGN that the town be renamed Konocti.

[27][28] The California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names is expected to provide a recommendation as part of the process.

In addition to the fish caught in the lake and streams, they hunted waterfowl and gathered berries, seeds, clover and acorn.

Both Eastern Pomo and Clear Lake Wappo bands lived in the area now designated as Kelseyville, the Pomo concentrated along Kelsey Creek all the way to Cobb Mountain, and the Wappo along Cole Creek and on the western slope of Mount Konocti.

The Clear Lake Wappo, which were one of the tribes enslaved by Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone, eventually disappeared from the area.

The exact location of the former indigenous community of Xabenapo or Xalanapo (which according to some authors designates the people rather than the town) remains unknown, but it is estimated to have been slightly south of present-day Kelseyville proper, along Kelsey Creek.

In 1847, Vallejo sold the livestock that had remained in the area to Ben and Andrew Kelsey, Charles Stone and E.D.

Stone and Kelsey enslaved the Pomo and Wappo people in two fenced camps they couldn't leave, forcing them to work under threat of torture and death.

Multiple and continuous abuse led to their killing by the indigenous population in 1849, which would lead to the Bloody Island Massacre in May 1850.

[30] More European American settlers established themselves in the area in the mid-1850s, after the removal of indigenous populations to rancherias and the sale of Rancho Lupyomi was challenged in court.

According to Woods Crawford, an early pioneer quoted by historian Lyman L. Palmer, the first house built in the area (besides Stone and Kelsey's adobe home, which was eventually dismantled by other settlers salvaging materials)[31] was built in 1853 at the foot of Mount Konocti by J. Broome Smith and William Graves, the latter a Donner Party survivor.

The Kelseyville area also includes parts of the Big Valley District, Kelsey Bench and Red Hills AVAs.

The community is home to the largest producer of organic saffron in California, Peace and Plenty Farm.,[55] as well as the Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa.

It was designated in 1961 as the "oldest commercial building" by the Lake County Historical Society and the Kelseyville Womens Club.