Keswick, CA

Keswick had 188 residents in 2020, in a Shasta County community set at about 732 feet beside the Sacramento River. Keswick Reservoir and Keswick Dam define the local landscape; the dam sits nine miles downstream from Shasta Dam and regulates water released from the Shasta Powerplant. The river corridor also carries the history of Iron Mountain mining and the engineering projects that reshaped this stretch of Northern California.

The Carr Fire of 2018 destroyed all but two homes in Keswick, making the fire a permanent part of the community’s recent memory. The surrounding river country still gives the area a strong outdoor dimension. Eastside Keswick Trails run for more than 25 miles between Shasta Dam and the Sacramento River Trail, while the paved Sacramento River Rail Trail follows 11 miles along the west shore of Keswick Reservoir. Keswick sits close to Redding but feels tied to the water-control works, wooded foothills, and old industrial history around the Sacramento. Its story is one of a small settlement living beside infrastructure and landscape on a very large scale.