In the 19th century, Americans’ fascination with the occult made fortune tellers and mediums common entertainment at fairs, lecture halls and private parties. Newspapers across the country carried stories of remarkable psychic predictions and spirit manifestations. Journalists also regularly exposed practitioners as frauds, but this did little to temper the faith of true believers. In […]
Lynette Mullen
Posted inNews
Humbuggery in Humboldt, Part 1
“We have been told that Eureka is the best town for fakirs on the coast and it is a ‘good thing’ as any first-class fakir will testify who has tried it.” — The Daily Standard, March 8, 1900 Though technology has evolved, human nature has not. Like today’s confidence men and women, scammers of Humboldt’s […]
Posted inNews
Red-Light Women, Part II
The hidden funders of early Eureka Gold eagle coins worth $10, double eagles worth $20 and various paper bills piled so high on the courtroom table that an officer was assigned to guard them. The fortune was the result of another Tithing Day held on Jan. 6, 1909, Eureka’s Daily Humboldt Standard explained, describing how […]
Posted inNews
Red-Light Women, Part I
The hidden funders of early Eureka In the spring of 1876, a bright and determined 17-year-old girl, standing 5 feet 6 inches, with light hair, fair skin and blue eyes, joined an aunt living in Humboldt County. She’d left San Francisco as Catherine Q., and stepped onto the Eureka Wharf as Kittie Warren, marking the […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Humboldt’s Grisly History of Illegal Abortions
George Landgren was not a good husband or father. In 1913, he abandoned his wife, Alma, and their two little boys, and headed south. When the local sheriff forced him back to Humboldt County to care for his family, he spent just enough time with them to avoid being charged with desertion — and to […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Opium Dens and ‘Morphine Fiends’
When Charles Martin addressed the Judge, his condition invoked the sympathy of everyone in the room. “Standing in the prisoners’ dock, he presented a pitiable sight,” the Humboldt Times described in an edition printed later that day. “Though young in years, he was nevertheless a broken, decrepit being, trembling in every nerve and muscle.” Martin […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
The Emerald Gang
While Arcata’s William Whaley spent the proceeds of his international smuggling operation with a “lavish hand” on champagne baths and other luxuries in San Francisco, the “thorough scoundrel” and acknowledged “best dressed man on Kearney Street” sent not a penny to his mother in Humboldt, complained the Humboldt Times on Jan. 12, 1894. The widowed […]