Fulton, CA

Fulton is a census-designated place in Sonoma County just north of Santa Rosa, with the city limits beginning close to the south. The 2020 census counted 551 residents. Its post office dates to 1871, and the community takes its name from Thomas and James Fulton. For decades, a chicken-processing plant operated here from the 1960s until 2010, giving the town a visible industrial chapter amid the farms, vineyards, and residential roads of the Mark West area. Mark West Creek runs through a watershed that reaches from the Santa Rosa plain toward the Mayacamas and the Russian River system.

ATTRJengod / CC BY-SA 4.0

Fulton Community School & Farm now gives the community a distinctive present-day institution. At 1225 Fulton Road, it grew from the Mark West Community Preschool after the original site was lost in the October 2017 Tubbs fire. The replacement campus brought together nonprofit groups, public agencies, local government, businesses, and residents around early education and a working farm. Fulton also sits within the Mark West watershed's mix of agricultural land, rural residences, riparian habitat, and conservation work. Santa Rosa supplies the larger urban network just south of town, while Fulton keeps its own identity through the school-and-farm campus, creek country, and long agricultural edge.