Pinkham’s Saloon in Trinidad, pre-1928

Caption from HSU Special Collections site:

Corner of Trinity and Edwards before 1928. || L-R ?, ?, ?, “Fisherman Dave” Nesbith, Jim Blue (standing against lightpost), Billy Beach (barber), ?. Pinkham’s Saloon burned in 1928.

Cubans in the Redwoods, c. 1926

Mr. and Mrs. Salmon of Havana, Cuba, representatives of the Little River Redwood Co. for the West Indies, pose with the wood boss, John Sequist, in the Company woods in the 1920′s after a huge redwood was felled

Steamer Munsomo at Fairhaven, loading lumber for Cuba, 1926

Not all change is bad-The Old Daly’s Store

This just wasn’t pretty.

But this is.

So I was feeling all clever and original in creating this post until I picked up the latest local book by Arcadia Publishing–this one is a “Then & Now” (mostly) photo book of Eureka written by local photographer (and now author) Scott H. Brown.  Scott shows almost exactly what I posted above on page 54-but since his book is already published. he clearly came up with it first–and his photos include interesting info like the Daly brothers came from Ireland to Eureka in 1892, established the Daly’s Dept. Store and that when the chain of five Daly’s stores closed in 1995, it was Northern California’s oldest independently owned department store chain.

Scott’s book is cool. Seriously. It is full of historic images (anywhere from 50 to 150 years old) contrasted with present-day photos. He also has great info in the captions. Scott works at Old Town Coffee and Chocolates and you can find him, signed copies of his book,  and a great mocha or cup of tea there.

Herrick Avenue Exit, South Eureka, c.1950

If you keep clicking to enlarge the photo, I believe you’ll see the back of this Elk River building, which was painted by my friend Frank Speck.

The sign pointing the way to Falk is also pretty cool and reminds me of the Hwy 101/299 interchange in 1933

Elk River Dam, 1884 (I’d never heard of it either)

 

It is so worth clicking on the photo above to get the HSU site where you can enlarge and look at the detail.

And this one dated 1884.

I go out and hike Headwaters a lot. If anyone knows where on the river this was, I’d love to hear and post it…

Squirrel or a lamp post?

Or Camp Grant?

That title was about as random as I could make it for a reason–and blog visitor Skippy is helping to make my point.

No one could identify Fort Grand or the Hausels. Maybe (though I’m not claiming we know for sure) that is because this is CAMP GRANT and the HANSELLS (Skippy’s very plausable theory).

I’ve lectured on this type of thing before but it has been a while.   Please, everyone, mark your photos clearly.  Then scan ‘em if you haven’t. Print ‘em if all you have are electronic copies.  Both are vulnerable. 

And if you have cool old photos and want to share, email them to me  at historyaddicts@gmail.com  and I’ll post them here. We’d love to see them.

The following came from Skippy.  Thanks Skip !

Here’s my guess about this picture:
 
It’s not Fort Grand, but Camp Grant near Dyerville on the Eel River.  It’s an easy misnomer to make.  Camp Grant was a military camp under the jurisdiction of Fort Humboldt.  Perhaps Fort and Camp were used interchangeably or confused altogether, and also Grand vs. Grant, too.  When I first saw the picture, this was the location I had immediately in my mind.

Obsessing Over Ferndale’s Dead

Ferndale, c. 1885 (County of Humboldt Collection)

I am not obsessing over Ferndale’s dead (really, I swear) but whoever (whomever?) took these photos had a very cool idea.

The first I have is from 1876 ,

the second from around 1880 ,

And now this one. And I may have more…

Though obsessing over the dead wouldn’t be new for Ferndale. I was a kid when they filmed Salem’s Lot there and recently a friend moved into one of the houses used in the movie.  Hope no floating boy scratches at his window…. 

Ok, and yes, it was a terrible movie, but I had a crush on the boy (not the undead one–the clever brave one that helped hunt and kill the vampires).  I also watched them film a couple of scenes, which was a first for me.

Eel River Ferry, Rio Dell

Eel River Ferry-outside Rio Dell

If you keep clicking on the photo to enlarge it, you’ll notice that it looks like the guy on the other side is holding a gun.

Fortuna Auto Park (and) The Story of the Fortunate Little Unfortunate

Fortuna Auto Park (sunnyfortuna.com)

 

This photo came from the Sunny Fortuna website , which was put together by Hans Koster and contains many, MANY wonderful historic photos (Warning, the sunnyfortuna.com site is truly addictive if you enjoy old photos) .

Some may remember Hans as the source of the story of the  Fortunate Little Unfortunate.

Indians with stories to tell

Indians of Northern California (Ericson)

I don’t know that we’d want to hear them (because they’re likely heartbreaking), but it is clear to me that these people have many stories to tell.