How did Santa Rosa gets it's original name?

Answer 1

Luther Burbank, the Saint of the Roses!

Paramahansa Yogananda was a friend of Luther Burbank and very impressed with his work of the first kind of "genetic engineering" by means of old fashioned "splicing" creating "hybrids".

Luther spliced slips of roses together, choosing the ones with the least thorns and splicing to make the next generation of roses until he made a rose that grows without thorns.

That took a lot of patience and Yogananda made Luther more famous among many more by telling people that Luther just LOVED the thorns right off the roses.

That is how some say that Santa Rosa was named.

The reason why Santa Rosa got its name was because Yogananda called Luther Burbank "The Saint of the Roses".