Humboldt State University -Palmquist Collection
Minor's Quarry
Issac Minor’s Granite Quarry (near Arcata)
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Described as being up Warren Creek off, owned by Isaac Minor, this quarry produced the granite used in Mr. Minor’s mausoleum at Greenwood Cemetery in Arcata http://bit.ly/H9EwWq
There was another quarry nearby where 101 crosses the Mad River now which produced 2,000 tons of granite for St. George Lighthouse at Seal Rock off Crescent City in 1884.
Amazing that no trace remains today of so much of historical activity.
Of course, Isaac’s quarry is still there, but the amount of poison oak to get there is daunting. It reputably never produced much material. A friend used to take his Scout troop there regularly and built some cabins to stay in for weekend campouts; they’d get there from Fickle Hill Rd. There’s still evidence of the railroad that zigzaged up to the quarry from West End Rd. but is on a private ranch, which also has a short section of what might be the last remnant of the 3′ redwood water line that used to supply water to Arcata/Eureka from the defunct Sweazey (spelling?) Dam. Wood from that water pipe lines the walls of the Eureka City Hall. Crabbers loved the iron rings for making crab pots.
The quarry that the St. George Reef Lighthouse is built of is up St. Maru Drive, the road that cuts up the hill just after the Mad River Bridge on the way to McKinleyville
This is great info, Bob. Thanks.
If you have, or can track down any more recent photos, please send ‘em my way and I’ll post them.
If I ever coerce Dan Trump into leading me down to Minor’s quarry from Fickle Hill Rd. I’ll send you pictures. I know that coming from below is daunting because of the vast amounts of poison oak.
I was at the McKinleyville Land trust fundraiser last night and sat next to a woman who lives at the top of St. Maru Drive. We discussed the (once)quarry there that the St. Georges Reef Lighthouse was built from. She could well be living right on top of it but was not aware. She’s going to contact me if she learns more and invite a peek at whatever remains.
I’d whine to encourage you to go and get photos, but sounds like you have to wait for an invite.
I’d love to post photos if you ever get ‘em….
The alternate titles of these photos reads: “A well dressed man and two workers sitting on top of broken boulders” and for the picture below, “Man standing between large boulder split in half.”
But I wonder if that ‘well-dressed man’ was Isaac Minor himself– and these pictures were taken on January 18, 1908?
The notes from the HSU Library of Special Collections makes reference to these photographs, I believe, by saying:
“(18 Jan. 1908) Photographer A.W. Ericson visited the Minor granite quarry near Warren creek recently, in company with Isaac Minor, and took a number of fine views of the quarry. Mr. Greig has a cook, an engineer, and a crew of several men and considerable progress has been made toward getting out the mammoth granite blocks for the Minor mausoleum. One boulder which is at least thirty feet through has been split up and some immense slabs have been shaped up. The plan is now to build a spur track up Warren creek to the quarry and take the heavy slabs out in this way and bring them to Arcata over the A.&.M.R.R.”
I do suspect that it is him. Just a feeling though I have nothing to support it.
Thanks for that description.
I also suspect it is him as did a number of my relatives when they contributed to the article “The four Minor brothers”, Humboldt Historian, Vol. 37, No. 2, May-June 1989. I’ve enlarged the figure in this photo and compared it to a family portrait of my great-great grandfather and it is almost certainly Isaac himself.
Reading in Dennis M. Powers: “Sentinel of the Seas: Life and Death at the Most Dangerous Lighthouse Ever Built” (Citadel-2007: ISBN 0806528427)
I find that the St. Maru street quarry was moving rounded blocks that were spilling down the hillside, down to a dressing area, then onto rail road cars, which were then loaded several at a time onto a barge in the bay, towed across to a point on the north Humboldt Spit where sheds and housing were built for a crew of men to finish dress the stones and put them on steamers for shipment to St. George reef. The initial cost to set all this up was $100,000 in the end of the 1800s. There were stub railways built and all sorts of details; I wonder if any of *that* shows today or not? Apparently the government didn’t fund for a few years due to a recession and the original pier rotted off, but new one was built. During the unfunding all the blocks got washed off the hillside to the bottom by the rains and had to be re-excavated from the mud at the bottom of the hill.
The rock is variously described as granite, but then also called “dark” which is unusual.
They took all the cuttings, gravel etc. for fill inside the lighthouse, so if there’s any left at all out there, it won’t be big obvious pieces, the large blocks having slid downhill and buried the rail stub over 130 years ago. They dug out the rail stub and reused it too for the remainder of the project.
I am always amazed at how much dirt our ancestors moved around with simple machines and hand labor.
Oh yes. I fear we couldn’t do the same today if we lost all our equipment.
Thanks for this–and giving us more structural/concrete “ghosts” to watch for.
I have recently added more photographs and information about Isaac Minor and his granite quarry in the Humboldt County section of our web site. You’ll find it at the following link, if you’re interested:
http://quarriesandbeyond.org/states/ca/quarry_photo/ca-humboldt_photos_2.html
If we ever travel up to your part of California, I’d love to try to locate and photograph the old quarry if there’s a way to get there without going through the poison oak.
Peggy B. Perazzo
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