The word "napa" is of Native American derivation and has been variously translated as "grizzly bear", "house", "motherland" or "fish".

At the time of the first recorded exploration into Napa Valley in 1823, the majority of the inhabitants consisted of Native Americans.

Padre José Altimira, founder of Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, led the expedition.

By this time, the indigenous people were either working as field laborers or living in small bands in the hills surrounding the valley.

[14] General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo had paid to survey for a township downriver at Soscol Landing, where riverboats could turn around prior to Napa's founding.

In the mid-1850s, Napa's Main Street rivaled that of many larger cities, with as many as 100 saddle horses tied to the fences on an average afternoon.

Horrell and L. Hoxie Strong, made its debut on August 10, 1863, with weekly publications until becoming a daily newspaper in 1872.

Sawmills in the valley were in operation cutting up timber that was hauled by team to Napa and then shipped out on the river to Benicia and San Francisco.

In 1858, the great silver rush began in Napa Valley, and miners eagerly flocked to the eastern hills.

At this time, the first wave of rural, foreign laborers from coastal villages of China's Canton province arrived in California and at Napa County mines.

The Napa Valley Opera House became popular after its debut on February 13, 1880, with a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore, but it later languished and was closed for many years.

The railroad carried passengers from ferry boats in Vallejo to stops in Napa and other locations in the valley.

[20][21] As agricultural and wine interests developed north of the city limits, much of the light industry, banking, commercial and retail activity in the county evolved within the city of Napa and in earlier times along the Napa River through the historic downtown.

Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 in their Napa workshop while working on an improvement for the telephone receiver.

[23] Following studies made by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1930-40s, the U.S. Congress authorized channel improvements on Napa River and construction of a dam on Conn Creek as part of the Flood Control Act of 1944, though funding was never approved.

The City of Napa funded and built the dam in order to create the water conservation reservoir Lake Hennessey in 1948; however, flooding continued to be a problem.

[24] In 2005, the Napa River again flooded the entire downtown area and destroyed 1,000 homes across the county.

Downtown Napa finally began to recover and emerge from a long economic slumber in the 2000s, triggered by a significant growth in Main Street restaurants and hotels.

In 2014, the Napa area was struck by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake centered 3.7 miles (6.0 km) northwest of nearby American Canyon.

[30] Renowned for its wine due to the Mediterranean climate, surprisingly only about 9% of Napa's acreage is planted with grapes.

The city has conducted a variety of waterfront development along the banks of the river, including certain fill operations governed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers regulations.

The town's comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2020, lists the top ten employers in the City of Napa as the following:[38] In the California State Legislature, Napa is in the 3rd Senate District, represented by Democrat Christopher Cabaldon,[39] and in the 4th Assembly District, represented by Democrat Cecilia Aguiar-Curry.

The Amtrak Thruway 7 bus makes daily stops in Napa to/from the Soscol Gateway Transit Center at 825 Burnell Street.