Siskiyou County reaches from Mount Shasta to the Oregon border, and it holds a lot of land for few people. The 2020 Census counted 44,076 residents. Yreka, the county seat, is the largest city at 7,807. Mount Shasta has 3,223, Weed 2,862, Dunsmuir 1,707 and Montague 1,226. Tulelake, Dorris, Fort Jones and Etna each have fewer than a thousand.
Valpro Attorney Services takes Siskiyou County process serving, court filings and document retrieval from our Sacramento office. Upload the documents on a Service Request, or send them to Service@ValproAttorneyServices.com.
The Yreka courthouse
Siskiyou Superior Court has a single courthouse at 411 Fourth Street in Yreka. Its locations page names no branch, and the local rules refer to it as the Yreka Branch. Civil (limited and unlimited), unlawful detainer, small claims, probate, family law, juvenile, criminal and traffic matters all come through this building.
The posted hours are split around a lunch closure: 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Phones are answered 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
A filing from Tulelake travels the same road as one from downtown Yreka. Allow for the noon closure and the distance when a deadline is close.
Two ways in: e-filing or the clerk's windows
Siskiyou adopted Local Rule 2.23 on July 1, 2024. It makes e-filing permissive in civil, probate, family law and small claims, through an authorized e-filing service provider. Paper filings are still taken in person at the clerk's service windows. The court's File Online page lists civil unlimited, civil limited, probate, family law, small claims and adoptions as e-fileable.
What the court won't take is email or fax for those case types. Domestic violence and gun violence restraining orders can be emailed to an address the court posts. Fax filing under Local Rule 2.24 covers only subsequent documents in criminal cases.
On March 30, 2026, the court moved unlawful detainer cases to paperless files. Its notice said civil e-filing was encouraged but not mandatory, and that the windows would keep accepting paper. The draft local rules for January 1, 2027 leave Rule 2.23's permissive wording unchanged.
Our Court Filings service can e-file through a provider or file on paper in Yreka. The Court Filings page lists what we need with the documents. General information, not legal advice.
Papers to serve in Siskiyou County?
The Sheriff's Civil office
The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Civil office is at the Sheriff's main office, 305 Butte Street in Yreka. Its hours are shorter than the court's: Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Friday, 9 a.m. to noon. The office serves process in every city and the unincorporated areas of the county.
Its page asks for a letter of instruction signed and dated by the attorney of record, or the plaintiff if there is no attorney, with the person's name and the physical address for service. It wants a copy of each document for every person served plus one for its file, and it collects fees in advance, per person.
A private server is the other option. Any adult who is at least 18 and not a party to the case may serve; our guide on who can serve papers in California has the rules, and the proof of service guide covers the return.
Five parts of a big county
The I-5 corridor. Dunsmuir, Mount Shasta, Weed and Yreka line the freeway from south to north. Dunsmuir is the closest of our listed Siskiyou towns to Sacramento, at about 186 miles straight-line.
Shasta Valley. Montague sits in the open valley just east of Yreka.
Scott Valley. Fort Jones and Etna are west of Yreka on State Route 3, at the edge of the mountains.
Butte Valley and the Tulelake Basin. Dorris is on US 97 near the Oregon line, and Tulelake is farther east, near Lava Beds National Monument.
The Klamath River country. Communities along the river west of I-5 are reached on long two-lane roads.
Remote areas are subject to different timelines. Winter snow on the passes can also slow travel, so we confirm timing for any address off I-5 before you choose Rush.
A good Letter of Instruction for Siskiyou
A P.O. box in town tells a server nothing about where someone lives. Help the server find the house:
- a physical address or directions from the nearest highway
- a ranch name, gate or driveway description
- whether the person lives there year-round
- a workplace and shift, if you know it
- any address in Shasta County or southern Oregon you have
When an address no longer works, skip tracing can look for a current one; our post on how to find a defendant in California explains the process.
Evictions, businesses and AB 747
Siskiyou evictions are filed at the Yreka courthouse. After personal service, the tenant's answer is due within 10 court days. A business defendant is usually served through its agent for service of process; see serving corporations.
AB 747 takes effect January 1, 2027. Three good-faith attempts on 3 different days at 3 different times show reasonable diligence for substituted service under CCP § 415.20(b)(2), and county clerks' registers of process servers become public under Bus. & Prof. Code § 22355. The AB 747 guide explains the details. General information, not legal advice.
Starting a Siskiyou County request
Start a Service Request, upload up to 5 PDFs, and pick Rush or Standard. The updates come to you by email. Phones are answered at 855-582-5776, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Next door: Shasta County, Modoc County and Del Norte County.