In 1835 English sea captain William Richardson erected the first building at San Francisco (then known as Yerba Buena). He later climbed the social ladder by marrying the daughter of the Mexican Commandant of Yerba Buena. In 1845 the Mexicans awarded Richardson a land grant covering the vast territory between the Garcia River and Big River.

Richardson called the place Albion after his English homeland, having a house and sawmill built by 1853. His first mill, on the river's estuary, was powered by a tide-driven water wheel. This clever design allowed the mill to operated whenever the tide was changing. Immense waves destroyed the mill in the winter of 1853. Richardson rebuilt the mill as a steam operation, then lost the land in 1854 because his grant was never recognized by the U.S. Land Commission.

New owners modernized the sawmill in 1854. By 1861 the growing town had a hotel, livery stable and mercantile near the mill. Workers lived in cabins on the crowded river flats. When the second mill burned in 1867, it was promptly replaced with a larger, better equipped mill. As the town outgrew the crowded river flats, neighborhoods marched up Michigan Hill to the north and Snob Hill to the south, vying for dominance. In 1879 the worst fire of all consumed the sawmill and ten other buildings. Once again the mill and town were rebuilt.

In 1889 a 1200-foot wharf reached out to deep water in the rocky harbor. Miles Standish (a direct descendent of the pilgrim of the same name) and Henry Hickey bought the lumber company in 1891. When another fire razed the fourth mill and most of the town in 1900, Albion rebuilt yet again. Southern Pacific Railroad bought the Albion operation in 1907 to provide wood for railroads they were building in Mexico. They expanded the small logging railway around Albion, extending lines to Wendling and Christine in Anderson Valley, and up the Albion River to Keen's Summit, not far from Comptche.

When Smeaton Chase came through in 1911, he hoped to see a microcosm of his own English homeland. He found

. . . a fine little town, all buzzing and humming with life, steam whizzing, saws shrieking, locomotive bustling about with cars of lumber, trim schooner at wharf, men wiping perspiring brows, and everything thriving. Down at the river's mouth was a little purple bay, all a-glitter with wind and surf.

The mill closed in 1928, the railroad shut down in 1930, and Albion's heyday passed into history. Albion survived as a farming and ranching community, with most residents living up on the ridges.

During the 1960's cheap land and the isolated location brought many urban refugees to the area. They coined the term Albion Nation to describe their independent and divergent lifestyles. Marijuana farming brought a new kind of prosperity briefly, but it soon collapsed in theft and violence, then heavy police surveillance. Feminist separatists and other communes revived some of the old farms and ranches, and many of their originators still live here today. In the '70s wildly successful Albion's People's Fairs celebrated the cultural renaissance and Country Women magazine spread the gospel. Today these manifestations of Albion's cultural diversity have become history, but a healthy independent spirit endures.