Brizard Building (Jacoby Storehouse) c 1900

Brizard Building (aka Jacoby Storehouse) c. 1900

Darn.  It hasn’t changed much in one hundred and ten years, has it?

Jacoby Storehouse, present day

Tsurai Indian Village in Trinidad, c. 1854

 

Early settlement of Trinidad, c 1854

Much attention was paid recently to the disturbance of the the ancient Yurok village, Tsurai,  in Trinidad (see the Times Standard articles linked HERE).

This is Tsurai… 

Early Tsurai, on Trinidad Bay

                    

Scotia Bluffs, railroads and mud slides

Scotia Bluffs

I grew up in Rio Dell, across the river from these very bluffs.

When I was a kid, trains still ran the tracks though slides were frequent in the winter and would shut everything down for a while.  I don’t remember anything as drastic as this photo shows, though I do remember hearing at least one tremendous crash in the middle of the night and waking to see that the bluff had shifted and slid and the tracks were covered (again). After a slide, ‘dozers and other big equipment would arrive to clear the mud and other debris and then the trains would come again. 

Unfortunately those days are over.  Mud slides plagued the rail line (among other problems, I’m sure) and it just got too expensive to maintain.  But the tracks are still there and if you can get over there, you’ll find fossils in the bluffs. Shells and snails and all kinds of improbable things…

Well, I thought I would add a current photo and found this on wikipedia instead. 

Scotia Bluffs

Child and bicycle, c. 1890

Lee Ashton Holmes-Robinson

My mother- in-law is doing a fantastic job researching her family’s genealogy and she has collected some great old photos.

The child, the boots, the hat.  The bike.  What isn’t there to love about this picture… ?

Eureka, c. 1923

7th & G Streets, Eureka. C 1923

There are a lot of cool things going on in this photo…

I wish I had more time this morning-I’d try to identify the buildings.  I wouldn’t be surprised if many are still standing, even if they are hidden behind new facades. 

If you look carefully at the commercial buildings downtown, especially between C & F streets, along 5th Street, you’ll notice the gables of old houses behind more “modern” and squared storefronts.  Sound Advice, a stereo store, I think, is one example.

Present day (ish)

Historic schoolhouse in Fields Landing

Banner School, date unknown

According to THIS WEBSITE, Banner School was located in Fields Landing, though it is hard for me to imagine where it might have been…

Drunkards to the rescue….

Continued from previous posts:

Poor miserable half naked…

Soldier on his way to Humboldt…

Training for “the enemy”… 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On March 29, 1862, a Humboldt Times headline read, “Horrible Indian Outrages!—The Savages Become Bolder!”

According to a letter submitted to the paper on March 27, 1862,  the citizens of Arcata were “really alarmed at the extent of their [Indians’] evil deeds and the increased boldness and daring… “

The letter goes on to say that local Indians shot Zehendner and burned his home, burnt Goodman’s house and the next day,  Mrs. Brehmer’s.  On Friday, March 28, Augustus Bates was shot and killed. The Natives then torched his house.    At the time, Bates, coincidentally, had homesteaded what is now our property.  He could have died within feet of where I type this blog.  But that is a story for another day.

The letter ends with this sad lament,

“What a sudden reverse—peace and fancied security one day—death and destruction the next. Surely human life is mutable and occurrences like this bring the fact impressively to our mind.

This is a gloomy letter, and ours is a gloomy town.  I can think and write of nothing else.”

On April 2, 1862, many of the citizens of Arcata signed a petition asking the military to remove the indigenous people from the county completely and place them in Mendocino County or Crescent City.  An application was made to General Wright for an increase of military force in the area, “that operations against the enemy may be effective and the war short.”

So hopes were high that the military would prove effective against the native threat when young James Brown and his fellow troops arrived in Humboldt county.

Moonstone, c. 1915

Moonstone, c. 1915

 And the Mermaid Inn, which is what that banner on the upper right is all about…

Mermain Inn, c. 1915

Baby palm trees on the Arcata Plaza, c 1918

Arcata Plaza, c 1918