Official Records

The records of the U.S. District Courts for the Districts of California are included among Record Group 21 and are split between the:

        National Archives at San Francisco
        1000 Commodore Drive
        San Bruno, California 94066-2350

        Email: sanbruno.archives@nara.gov

and the:

        National Archives at Riverside
        23123 Cajalco Road
        Perris, California 92570-7298

        Email: riverside.archives@nara.gov

Guides to the holdings of the regional archives are available at: https://www.archives.gov/san-francisco/holdings 
and https://www.archives.gov/riverside/finding-aids

A published description of the records is also available in the Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States, 1995 (http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/index.html ).

Bibliography

Cahan, Richard, Pia Hinckle, and Jessica Royer Ocken. The Court that Tamed the West: From the Gold Rush to the Tech Boom. Berkeley, Cal.: Heyday, 2013.

Cosgrave, George. Early California Justice: The History of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, 1849-1944. San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1948. 

Fritz, Christian G., Michael Griffith, and Janet M. Hunter, eds. A Judicial Odyssey: Federal Court in Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties. San Jose: San Jose Federal Court Advisory Committee, 1985.

Fritz, Christian G. Federal Justice in California: The Court of Ogden Hoffman, 1851-1891. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.

———. “The Judicial Business of a Nineteenth-Century Federal Trial Court: The Northern District of California, 1851-1891.”Western Legal History 5 (Summer/Fall 1992): 217-251.

Hall, Kermit L. “Mere Party and the Magic Mirror: California’s First Lower Federal Judicial Appointments.” Hastings Law Journal32 (March 1981): 819-837.