USA > California > Humboldt County > History of Humboldt County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 17
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Not only do the leaders of public opinion in the sundry towns of the county expect a large tourist trade which will cause a multiplication of hotels and resorts,
HUMBOLDT COUNTY COURT HOUSE
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U. S. FEDERAL BUILDING AND POST OFFICE, EUREKA
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but they believe that many state and national conventions will inevitably be held in the towns around Humboldt bay, preferably in Eureka, although Arcata is showing many signs of stirring activity and is preparing to meet the new con- ditions in the spirit of modernity. The fact that the climate around Humboldt bay is the coolest summer climate on the American continent is confidently regarded as an asset sure to bear its reward.
The town of Arcata, with a population of more than two thousand people, made great progress during 1914. Interest in all sorts of public enterprises was greatly stimulated by the fact that the town won the State Normal school after a hot competition with Eureka. The achievement of this victory stimulated interest in public buildings in general and the result has been the building of a modern theatre and the projection of plans that will lead to the construction of many other modern buildings. One of the ambitions of the town is to capture the railroad shops and become a division point of the Northwestern Pacific Railway.
Arcata was fortunate in obtaining from the legislature of 1913 a generous grant of five hundred acres of tide lands immediately adjacent to the city and so favorably located that a good harbor frontage is likely to be the result. This will all be owned by the city and can be leased on favorable terms for terminal facilities for railroads, lumber companies, and other great corporations. Arcata's very large Chamber of Commerce at once began negotiations with corporations for the development of this land. The various committees of the chamber are in close touch with concerns that may be looking for a location on Humboldt bay.
No fact connected with the recent commercial history of Humboldt county is more significant than the projection of a plan that looks to the building of a thrifty little city at Fort Seward, which is likely to become the metropolis of southern Humboldt county. By bringing Judge George W. Rowe and other experts to Fort Seward and vicinity, E. B. Bull, manager of the properties of the Humboldt Land and Development Company, of which Frank K. Mott is presi- dent, attracted the attention of the entire state to the fact that a modern develop- ment company could work wonders in the virgin fields of southern Humboldt.
Plans have been partly perfected for taking care of the influx of settlers who may visit southern Humboldt in search of homes. Mr. Bull recognizes the fact that one of the important steps in development will be to take care of the immigrant during the first few years of his residence at Fort Seward. To this end preparations are being made for cold storage plants, canneries, cream- eries, and such other modern plants as may be needed in the campaign seeking to command the market. In this connection there will be a concerted effort to raise apples of high quality on a co-operative plan that shall seek to make the out- put large enough to attract attention in such markets as those of London and New York City.
In a similar way the company will try to induce those going into the poultry and dairying business to work in such a manner as to make the output regular rather than sporadic. By applying modern business efficiency methods to the problems before them the Fort Seward people hope to show other communities throughout the county that there are many more possibilities in Humboldt county than people have heretofore thought. It may be said that the salutary example of the Fort Seward plan has already spread to other towns in the county.
An odd fact in the conditions of town life in Humboldt county is seen in the building of houses adequate to the population. In 1913 and 1914 there was complaint in Ferndale, Fortuna, Arcata, and Eureka that strangers could not
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find modern apartment houses, bungalows, or cottages. Not a single building and loan association exists in the county, and the old settlers seem to take no interest in the fact that strangers within the gates of the towns of the county are put to all sorts of inconveniences in trying to find shelter and the comforts of modern life. With the coming of the railroads, a change in these conditions would seem to be inevitable.
The commercial activities of Eureka, the capital city of the county, were stimulated in 1914 by the organization of the Eureka Development Association, which sprang into life by reason of the fact that Arcata had beaten Eureka out of the Normal school, this largely by reason of the fact that the Arcatans were well organized while the Eurekans had conducted their fight in a desultory way. The Eureka Development Association maintains that the metropolis of the red- . wood realm is sure to become a city of far greater importance than it has ever been. They cite the fact that it has grown rapidly without the advantages of railroads connecting it with the outside world.
During 1913 and 1914 there was an undoubted increase in the population of Eureka, as indicated by postoffice reports, school statistics, street car earnings, city directory reports, and figures from like sources. The population in 1914 was probably 15,000. The fact that the Northwestern Pacific announced in June that it would run a train into Eureka by October created a great deal of interest in the towns in other parts of the state. A marked movement from outside was soon in evidence, and many of those who came immediately began to plan as to how they could bring industries to the shores of Humboldt bay. The hope of the town lies in the prospect of smoke stacks and the hum of industry.
Secretary Roberts of the Eureka Development Association has well said that the streets are wide, clean and well paved. The public and mercantile buildings are worthy of the population, although many of the structures are old and might be greatly improved.
There are many comfortable residences, while gas, electricity, good car ser- vice, excellent schools, telephones ; water, light and gas systems, and other conve- niences make the town a place of comfort. Those who have been studying the Panama Canal believe that when the jetties are completed the harbor of Eureka will profit greatly by the trade that will come from many other parts of the world.
The harbor of Eureka is unquestionably the most important one between San Francisco and the Columbia river. The building of extensive jetties to over- come the terrors of a bad bar is sure to make the shipping interests far more important than they have ever been.
It is almost impossible to say just what advantages will come to Eureka and other towns when the state highway is finished, along with improved roads, tapping the rich Sacramento valley. The road to Redding and Red Bluff has already brought Humboldt bay within about sixteen hours of the hot and dusty Sacramento valley. The establishing of a summer colony at the mouth of Little river by people from Red Bluff is a hopeful indication of the tendencies of the times. Norman R. Smith and his associates at Red Bluff have laid out an attractive summer resort on the beautiful shores of the Pacific ocean just above the mouth of Little river. It would seem that the coming of a large number of tourists from the vicinity of Redding and Red Bluff is sure to make some of the towns of Humboldt county tourist headquarters during the summer months.
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Business men are already planning to attract such enterprises as flour and feed mills, woolen mills, boot and shoe factories, paper and pulp mills, furniture factories, canning and preserving plants. There is no doubt that the natural resources for these enterprises abound in the vicinity of Eureka.
Secretary Charles H. Roberts of the Eureka Development Association con- tributes the following concerning the capital of Humboldt county :
"Climatically, the claim is made that Eureka has the shortest thermometer in the United States, the annual mean daily range being 10.7 degrees. The maximum temperature is 85 degrees and the minimum is 20 degrees. The annual rainfall is quite heavy, averaging 45 inches, but being well distributed there is no excessive precipitation during the winter months and nothing parched during the summer. Frosts are incidents and snow is practically unknown. Ultimately Eureka will become a great summer resort where those from the heat-oppressed interior may be refreshed.
"Eureka blocks are laid out two hundred and forty feet square. A majority of the streets are sixty feet wide, although a number are seventy-five feet wide. There are over fifty miles of graded streets. In the business section are three and one-half miles of bitumen paved streets. Crushed rock is used on twenty-five miles of streets. There are twenty miles of concrete walks. The city annually spends between $30,000 and $35,000 on its streets.
"There are five banks in Eureka. According to the annual reports for 1913 the combined deposits amounted to $5,549,778.
"The public schools of Eureka are comprehensive in their scope and plan, consisting of kindergarten, grammar and high school. There are six modern school buildings of eight rooms each, all sightly, convenient and commodious, with modern heating and ventilating plants. There are two thousand students enrolled in the schools, four hundred in the high school and sixteen hundred in the grammar grades.
"A new high school building is now under construction at a cost of $170,000. This is being built of reinforced concrete and when completed, January 1, 1915, will be one of the most artistic and up-to-date school structures in California. The present high school is to become an intermediate high school. The Eureka high school is accredited at Stanford University and at the University of Cali- fornia.
"In the high school special attention is paid to all forms of woodwork, cook- ing, sewing and other household arts. Besides literary and debating societies, German, French, Spanish and agricultural clubs, the Eureka high school is exceedingly fortunate in having a first-class school orchestra and a well-drilled glee club.
"Eureka employs a corps of sixty-six teachers. In the grades special instruc- tors are employed in manual training, domestic science, singing and drawing. The grammar schools of Eureka are especially proud of the well-developed system of home gardening.
"At a recent election the citizens voted to bond the city for $270,000 to purchase the Eureka water works, which are now municipally owned. The water for Eureka is taken from Elk river, located five and one-half miles south of the city. Water is pumped through sixteen-inch and thirteen-inch transmission mains into two large redwood tanks with a combined capacity of over 1,000,000 gallons, thence by gravity through forty-five miles of distribution mains and 70,000 feet of service pipe to all parts of the city. An 80,000-gallon steel tank has been
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erected in the higher southern portion of the city at an elevation of sixty-five feet higher than the two redwood tanks from which water is re-pumped into the steel tank. The system is ninety per cent metered. The water is very soft and of good quality and there is a sufficient quantity for a population of from 30,000 to 40,000. The rates are reasonable ; domestic rates are forty cents per thousand gallons for the first 10,000 gallons; twenty cents per thousand gallons for all over 10,000 gallons ; special rates are given factories, mills and other heavy con- stimers.
"Light and gas in Eureka are furnished by the Western States Gas and Electric Company, which owns and operates three generating plants, two in this city, and one, a hydro-electric plant, containing 1500 kilowatts installed capacity, sixty-five miles east of Eureka. The Eureka plants are both steam turbine stations with a combined installed capacity of 3000 kilowatts. This concern owns one hundred ninety-two miles of pole lines with six hundred eighty-one miles of wire in transmission and distributing circuits. The generating station of the gas works is equipped for an output of 500,000 cubic feet per day. The company reports that within the last ten years the electrical business in this territory has grown 400 per cent. Rates are fixed by the California Railroad Commission.
"An electric trolley system of street cars is operated over twelve and one-half miles of track, reaching all parts of the city. The service compares with the best on the coast.
"The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company provides an excellent service with 2500 telephones installed. Communication with San Francisco can be obtained either by telephone or telegraph, the Western Union having an office in this city.
"Building operations in Eureka during the last few years have been growing, the tendency being toward a better class of buildings and permanent construction in the use of brick, concrete and steel. Within the last two or three years a number of fine public and semi-public structures has been erected, among them the Elks hall; Eagles building; Federal building in which the postoffice, and the offices of the immigration inspector, internal revenue inspector, collector of port, United States engineers, weather observer and land office, as well as the United States District Court, are located; the county jail, Vance estate building, Gross building and new high school.
"In 1912 the building operations amounted to $154,241, the residence con- struction making up one-third. In 1913 the building operations amounted to $188,835, with residences making up fifty per cent of the work. For the first half of 1914 the building operations already total $197,206, and the residences are still fifty per cent of the total construction. Many artistic bungalows and pleasing mansions are found throughout the residence district.
"Morning and evening newspapers and two weekly publications cover the newspaper field in Eureka, the dailies receiving daily telegraphic service from the Associated Press and the International News Service. The Eureka papers are noted among the most progressive in the state.
"A mayor and five councilmen form the governing body of Eureka, known as the City Council. The police force is composed of a chief, captain and six patrolmen. An excellent volunteer fire department possesses two hundred seventy-five members in eight different companies, three modern fire engines, an automobile chemical engine, two trucks, ample hose carts and a Gamewell fire alarm system. The City Hall, erected less than ten years ago, cost $125,000. The
SEQUOIA PARK, EUREKA
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Carnegie Free Library of Eureka is one of the show places, having a particularly large stock of books, and one of the finest collections of birds and animals, the result of taxidermist's art, to be found in California. There are more than fifteen churches and thirty-seven fraternal societies. The Humboldt Chautauqua, now two years old, meets in Eureka annually.
"Within the city limits is Sequoia Park, the city's pleasure ground, com- prising thirty-five acres of virgin redwood forest and five acres of playgrounds. Within the confines of the park is a beautiful lake.
"Eureka being the county seat of Humboldt county, a fine court house occupies a block close to the business section.
"It is estimated that the present stand of redwood in Humboldt county occupies about 450,000 acres, producing from 100,000 to 200,000 feet of lumber per acre, and valued at from $200 to $600 per acre. Lumbering at the present time is the major industry of the county. Eleven large sawmills in Humboldt send out annually about 200,000,000 feet of redwood lumber through the port of Eureka.
"Dairying is the second important industry of Humboldt. The annual output of dairy products totals about 10,000,000 pounds with a valuation of $2,000,000. Humboldt was the first California county to engage a scientific farm adviser. In the hills stockraising is followed, fruit culture is given attention on the bench and bottom lands, commercial and sport fishing bring financial and pleasurable returns on all the larger streams, and the wilds abound in game. Good roads generally give opportunity to get to the edge of the wilds without trouble or loss of time.
"Passenger steamers are operated regularly between Eureka and Portland, and between Eureka and San Francisco. More than twenty steam schooners in the lumber and freight trade call at Eureka from all ports of the Pacific coast. Large freighters carry off shore cargoes of redwood lumber to South America, Australia, China and Great Britain. About 1000 vessels come and go at Hum- boldt bay during a year, and in that time the port trade averages about $20,000,000.
"Eureka is but yet in the embryo state. Unhampered by former difficulties of transportation, despite which the city has forged ahead in the past, the Eureka of the next few years will advance with amazing rapidity to its destined place among the leading centers of the Pacific coast."
In the olden days Eureka was famous for a large number of excellent singers. Men and women now prominent in business and social life belonged to choral societies of the long ago, and these societies frequently carried away honors in contests with musical clubs from other parts of the State. Some of the men who were judges of the Superior Court thirty years ago shone as singers when away from home. At their home and whenever any public musical events were on they were popular because of their splendid voices and training.
For a number of years there was a lapse of interest in affairs of this character, but about 1911 the Sequoia club of music was started by a number of the musically inclined ladies of the town. Though Eurekans have not shown so much interest in musical events as in the past there is no doubt that this splendid organization has stimulated local interest and brought a number of distinguished musicians to Eureka on the occasion of special musical entertainment.
In 1913 Judge Clifton H. Connick established a choral society which is known by the simple name of the Choral Society. He gathered around him twenty or thirty of the best singers in the town and at once began training them
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in grand opera and other high-class music. At the Elks' Memorial exercises in 1913 this splendid organization gave a musical program that surprised the peo- ple of the town and attracted wide attention throughout the State when it was heard of through the reports of strangers who chanced to be present during the memorial exercises. It is the ambition of those who constitute this superb organ- ization to make it so efficient that it will be able to furnish great choral music on public occasions such as conventions and social entertainments.
The social life of most of the towns of the county is such as to break the monotony of everyday life and prevent the people from falling into a hum-drum existence. In almost every town there are several clubs devoted to musical, literary, civic and social affairs. In most instances it is the women who have for- warded club life and taken an active interest in starting uplifting organizations.
It is to be regretted that an automobile club and a home products association were allowed to fall by the wayside. The automobile activities have been merged to a great extent in those of the state organization. It is the purpose of the Humboldt Promotion Cominittee to do everything within its power to co-operate with the State Home Industry movement, which has headquarters in San Fran- cisco. Roy Fellom, editor and owner of the Home Industries Magazine, has a plan which seeks to bring every county of the State in line with the general move- ment. It is believed that the completion of the railroad will bring Humboldt county in closer touch with this great movement. The parent commercial organ- ization of Humboldt county is the Chamber of Commerce, a county-wide organization which, though run conservatively, without pretense, noise, or flurry, has accomplished wonderful results in many lines of industry.
The fundamental purpose of the Humboldt Chamber has always been the furnishing of a dignified channel through which public opinion might express itself authoritatively upon matters of importance to the community, thus giving force and effect to its demand for such public improvements as the needs of the par- ticular section might require. The following account of the early work of the Chamber is from the pen of George A. Kellogg, who has been secretary of the organization, and has ably managed its affairs ever since January, 1892:
"Incorporated March 13, 1891, as the result of a feeling on the part of the citizens of Humboldt that the Government improvement work on Humboldt Bar needed the support and assistance of the more prominent of Humboldt's citizens, the Chamber has ever since addressed itself largely to the looking out for the larger matters of public improvement, while not neglecting the important work of advertising the resources of the county, nor failing to perform those social duties essential to the proper entertainment of distinguished visitors from abroad.
"Beginning with a membership of about ninety, the number was rapidly in- creased to one hundred and twenty; and it has ever since alternated between seventy and one hundred and thirty-five, the variation being in accordance with the activity of its officers and the importance of the public matters receiving its attention. At present the membership is one hundred and twenty-five, nearly half of whom have been members since the beginning of the Chamber.
"Almost the first work taken up by the Chamber was the endeavor to secure a sufficient appropriation to insure the carrying on to completion of the work of building the jetties at Humboldt entrance. A very forceful memorial to Congress was adopted and forwarded, and by prompt and wise action on the part of Con- gressman T. J. Geary, assisted by Senator C. N. Felton, this work was placed on the continuing contract list, thus insuring its being carried to completion. News
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of this event reached the Chamber on the evening of April 8, 1892; and such was deemed the importance of this matter that a general celebration, participated in by citizens from all over the county, was shortly afterwards held. The com- mittee appointed to secure funds for this monster celebration raised nearly $3500 in about three-quarters of a day ; and the parade on the night of the rejoicing was almost a mile in length.
"The Chamber has also secured three appropriations for dredging the chan- nels of the bay ; one of $80,000 and one of $50,000, having been expended some years ago ; while the third, amounting to $83,000, will be expended this year.
"One of the first matters to receive the attention of the Chamber was the securing of a Federal Public Building here. And by dint of continued efforts on the part of the Chamber and our representatives in Congress, an appropriation of $130,000 was last year made for this purpose. A site has been selected, and when the defects in the title are corrected by the friendly suit now about to come up before Federal Judge De Haven, the work of the Chamber in this connection will be ended successfully. It is now nearly fifteen years since the first efforts were made in this matter; and it is with a feeling of deep relief and satisfaction that those who have been charged with the burden of this work can now foresee the successful end of their labors.
"Many matters of importance to this city and county have been promoted wholly or in part by the Humboldt Chamber of Commerce. Among them may be mentioned the securing of terminal rates to the Eastern markets for the lumber products of this county, which was solely the work of the Chamber. The re- organization of the city under a special charter; the building of the woolen mills here; the free delivery of mail in the city ; the building of the Harris road, and the road to the Klamath river ; the erection of the Carnegie Free Library ; various improvements in the mail service, and the connection of the Government light houses and life saving stations by telegraph or telephone; the establishment of a light vessel at Blount's Reef; and a variety of minor matters too numerous to mention.
"In the line of advertising the resources of this prolific section, the Chamber has kept fairly well up to the demands and needs of the people. It has made full or partial exhibits at State Fairs. at the Midwinter Fair, at the New Orleans Exposition, at the Chicago World's Fair, and at the Lewis and Clark Exposition. In 1891 it issued a small pamphlet on this county's products, which was mainly statistical. In 1893 it brought out 'In the Redwood's Realm,' the prince of all county advertising books. In 1900 was produced its small pamphlet, 'Humboldt County,' and in 1904 a re-issue of the same was made. In all, more than 50.000 copies of these various books and pamphlets have been distributed. Along with this distribution, the Chamber is continually answering by letter the numerous requests for information about Humboldt which it receives.
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