Arcata’s Minor Theatre opened way back in 1914, so long ago that’s it never been established if it was the first one in the nation built primarily as a cinema, but it was sure close. It’s never been made clear whether Harry Houdini performed there in the 1920s but the lore is more fun if […]
News
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Mayoral Misconduct?
The city of Arcata is currently weighing whether and how it investigates allegations against Councilmember Brett Watson, at least some of which were the subject of a closed session meeting earlier this month to discuss the city’s potential exposure to litigation and later prompted a very public rebuke from his colleagues on the dais. “Information […]
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Who Haunts the Stairways of the Historic Eagle House?
Have you been in an old house or historic building and heard footsteps on the stairs? You hear the distinct creak of footfalls on each step and you’re certain that some living person must be there. And then … . You see no one. Maybe you even realize you’re alone in the house. Or, at […]
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Deaths at Chemawa
Charlie Feister, a citizen of the Klamath Tribes, was a runaway from Chemawa Indian School when he was shot dead in 1907 while trying to steal food from a store in Chemawa, Oregon. A short article in the Weekly Chemawa American student newspaper describing the incident fails to mention that Charlie was 11 years old […]
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Searching for Bertie
For Tim McDonald and Julie Geary, schoolteachers from the Los Angeles area, a July road trip up the coast with a stop in Arcata to see friends from his Humboldt State University days, was both a first and a last chance to get away after a year hunkered down and before the new school year. […]
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Moderne Beauty
Living inside a movie theater is a fantasy many cinephiles have surely entertained, but few have indulged. George M. Mann, builder and original proprietor of the Eureka Theater, was one of the few. Mann worked from the 1920s through the 1940s to build a chain of movie theaters that would eventually span from Klamath Falls […]
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Under Submission
A professional misconduct case against two county attorneys accused of serious ethics violations for their handling of a local right-to die case is now in the hands of a California State Bar Court judge. Blair Angus, who retired in 2019 as assistant county counsel, and Deputy County Counsel Natalie Duke each faces a series of […]
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Arcata Police Video Captures Fatal Shooting
The 35-year-old Eureka man fatally shot by a California Highway Patrol officer last month on Mad River Road fired at least one round at officers before the officer returned fire, video of the incident released Oct. 8 shows. Having followed Charles David Chivrell, who had a pistol holstered on his hip and a briefcase in hand, for […]
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Help Wanted
In Eureka, officers are working an emergency schedule built on 12.5-hour shifts and mandatory overtime, as the police department’s once touted Problem Oriented Policing and Community Safety Engagement teams operate with skeletal staffing. In Arcata, two detectives have been pulled back to patrol and all calls for service that don’t involve someone in danger have […]
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Sue-meg Restored
Since time immemorial, the Yurok people have called the coastal area north of Trinidad — located in the heart of their ancestral lands — Sue-meg. Now, some 170 years after the name was usurped, the 1-square-mile property with meadows, forest lands and long beaches stretched out below soaring cliffs will officially be known as Sue-meg […]
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Toward a Sustainable Blue Economy
The perennial conflict between environmental conservation and economic development may now be in remission, the crisis of climate change increasingly pushing industries into cooperation with environmental goals. One such path of co-existence, at least along the California coast, is the “Sustainable Blue Economy,” defined by the World Bank as the “the sustainable use of ocean […]
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The Patroness
“Boats at Harbor” has a familiarity about it, both as Humboldt scenery and as subject matter for local watercolor paintings. A trio of boats flank a small dock rendered in earth tones, with sharper lines tracing the masts and the edges of the boats and layers of deepening green for what looks like Woodley Island […]