Then and Now -Farming and Commerce

The region surrounding the Redwood National and State Parks includes broad bays, vast coastal meadows, navigable rivers, and a rugged coastline. As the lumber business grew and increasing numbers of people moved into the area, the demand for services and goods expanded as well. Cattle ranching and dairy provided the fuel for workers settling in the towns of Eureka, Arcata, and Crescent City. People traveling by stage needed places to stay and California’s political establishment began to understand the importance of the redwood economy to the state’s position on the world stage.

 

Eureka Congregational Church - 1864

The California Gold Rush brought European settlers to Humboldt Bay in the early 1850s, displacing the native Wiyot people in sometimes very violent ways. The Congregational Church was located on G Street between 3rd and 4th streets, just a few blocks from the bay. Behind it was the forest that has been replaced by a mile of urban development.This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Palmquist Collection, Humboldt State University Library

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Cattle in Downtown Eureka - ca. 1890

Cattle raised in the hills and valleys to the east of Eureka were driven through town to the wharfs for shipment to San Francisco and other markets. This photograph was taken at 2d and C Streets. In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Norwegians, Fins, Portuguese, and Italians made their way to the cool, fertile lands of Humboldt County to work on farms, ranches, and various industries.This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: HCC Photos Collection, Humboldt State University Library

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

H.H. Alexander's Dair Ranch - 1890

H.H. Anderson’s ranch, three miles southeast of Crescent City, was well-equipped for its time. An 1894 book reported that “everything about his farm indicates thrift and comfort.”

In the late 1800’s, as Crescent City and its environs grew, so did demand for wagon access to Klamath, Trinidad, and Eureka to the south. The existing Klamath Trail was made slippery by regular rains “so that it is hardly safe to ride a horse over it faster than a walk”. The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors authorized the financing of a new road which would run along the beach to just south of Anderson’s ranch, then cross Cushing Creek and climb up to the top of Ragged Ass Hill. It was finished in the late summer of 1894, with stages operating between Crescent City and Eureka.

This pair of photos is located within the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Redwood National and State Parks Archives

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Brizard Store Arcata - ca. 1898

In 1863, Alexander Brizard, a native of Bordeau, France, partnered with a fellow store clerk to establish the mercantile, Brizard and Rossum. Twelve years later, Brizard bought Rossum out and it became Brizard’s Store. The store sold everything from groceries to furniture to clothing and liquor. He opened satellite stores all over the region including Hoopa, Martin’s Ferry, Orleans, Requa, and Scotia. He used mule trains to supply his branches. After a fire in 1875, Brizard bought Jacoby’s storehouse on the southeast corner of Arcata Plaza. His three sons took over the family business after Alexander’s death in 1904 and it wasn’t until 1974 when the Brizard store actually closed. The old brick building was returned to its original name, the Jacoby Storehouse.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Brizard Collection, Clarke Historical Museum

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Wagon of Milk in Arcata Plaza - ca. 1900

Before European settlers arrived, the area now known as Arcata was the location of a Wiyot village called “Kori”. The name Arcata is derived from oket’oh, a Yurok term meaning “where there is a lagoon”. The town of Union, later renamed as Arcata, was established in 1850, right after California was admitted to the Union. It served as a port and source of provisions for the gold mines in the mountains to the east (it was closer to the mines than Eureka).

The plaza was laid out in the Spring of 1850 .When redwood timber replaced gold as the economic engine for the region, Eureka, which had a better harbor, overtook Union as an economic center. However, when the marshlands to the north of town, known as the “Arcata Bottoms”, were diked, the commercial dairy industry became a major employer until the end of World War II.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Photographer: A.W. Ericson; The Ericson Collection: Humboldt State University Library

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Hotel Ivanhoe Ferndale - ca. 1900

The Ivanhoe was a popular hotel in the late 1800s when Ferndale was the largest town in Humboldt County and an important transportation hub. Stagecoach lines headed south to the Mattole region and north to Eureka. Nearby Port Kenyon on the Salt River accepted ocean-going ships, enabling expansion of dairy and farm exports to points north and south. A hundred years of siltation from agricultural activities has filled in the Salt River and it is no longer navigable to ocean-going vessels.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Images of America: Lost Coast Durston, Tammy Arcadia Publishing 2017

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Governor Gillette Arrives in Ferndale - 1907

Governor James Gillett passed through Ferndale on his way to Petrolia to celebrate its 100% Republican vote that helped him rise to power. A strong proponent of a state highway system, his caravan of automobiles traversed the steep and windy Wildcat road to Petrolia, built by Chinese workers in the 1870s. Chinese residents were expelled from Ferndale, along with a host of other North Coast towns, in 1885. Ferndale is the western-most incorporated town in the lower-48 states.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Photographer: McCloskey; Swanlund-Baker Collection, Humboldt State University

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

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