Before the Europeans had invaded the lands of Roseville, there were over 300,000 people divided into seven different linguistic families. The most well known grouping was the Maidu, whose territory went from the Sacramento Valley to the Sierras. Another Maidu town in the Roseville area centered along Dry Creek west of present day Riverside Avenue. Between 1870 and 1879, Roseville experienced the “slow but sure” development which characterized many California towns in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
