Chag Lowry knows some stories need to be told to make way for healing. He also knows some stories have been pushed aside and ignored, recast by outsiders or, worse, simply relegated to the dust bins of history as people pretend they never existed, allowing old wounds to fester. With his third book Soldiers Unknown […]
history
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Survey Markers and Olympic Medals
Observant walkers strolling down Ninth Street in Eureka between A and L streets may have wondered about the occasional incongruent circular metal discs anchored into the south sidewalk bearing the words “CALIFORNIA DIVISION OF HIGHWAYS,” “HUM-101” and the date 1971. Incongruent because Ninth is outside Caltrans jurisdiction. In fact, the discs are centerline markers of […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Women Behind the Trees
On Nov. 10, 1924, the Pacific Lumber Co. began secretly logging its timberland near the mouth of the South Fork Eel River. The plan was to cut a right-of-way through the forest that would allow the company to reach Bull Creek Flat, about a mile away, and then level thousands of acres of old growth […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Bear Harbor Railroad, 1892-1905
Last week, we followed the saga of the Bear Harbor Railroad from the delivery in 1892 of a “Gypsy” locomotive — what would become Bear Harbor Lumber Company No. 1 — to the early 1900s, when the grandiose plans of lumberman Neff Anderson began to be fulfilled with construction of the mill town of Andersonia, […]
Posted inNews
Crimes from the Past
Recorded in the eloquent handwritten script of a bygone era, a set of recently rediscovered ledgers contains more than just a list of the individuals who were led through the doors of the Humboldt County jail starting back in the 1880s. The seven logs, along with an equal set of mug shot books, also offer […]
Posted inNews
Humboldt Lines up For Legal Weed
Dozens lined up on Eureka’s F Street this morning, waiting to become the first people in Humboldt County to legally purchase recreational cannabis. Laura Montagna was the first in line, having shown up at about 10 a.m. — two hours before Eco, the only state licensed dispensary in Humboldt County, was slated to open its […]
Posted inNews
TL;DR: Five Questions to Catch You Up
Busy week? We’ll help you catch up on the basics of this week’s cover story, which details the conversation about what should be done about the statue of President William McKinley and a plaque commemorating the Jacoby Storehouse on the Arcata Plaza. Read the full story here before you dive into a Facebook comments debate. Below, […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
The Spirit of a Place
“You’re playing hooky today,” Jerry Rohde’s mom informed him one autumn morning when he was 12. They piled into her 1954 Ford sedan and headed into the San Bernardino Mountains to explore a historic Wild West village she visited when she was a girl. Set in a pine forest surrounded by steep cliffs and rocky […]
Posted inNews
Last Night at Roy’s
A little after 5 p.m. on Saturday, the sky over Old Town Eureka is dark enough for the neon sign in front of Roy’s Club Italian Restaurant to cast pink light on a party of four ambling toward the door. They smile and tilt their heads at one another on the sidewalk. “Well, here we […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Sheep Dates
The chronology of sheep, aka sheep dates, starts around the same time as the great change from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agriculture, around 10,000 years ago. Sheep were the first animals to be domesticated for meat, thus occupying a special place in the history of humankind. Archeological sites in modern-day Turkey, Iran and […]
Posted inShopping
Hit the Books
The 50-year-old independent institution of Northtown Books (957 H St., Arcata, 822-2834), with its flier-filled window, is the oldest bookstore in the county. Along with a curated selection of fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, guides and magazines, the shop has a section dedicated to Humboldt history and culture. Peek at those fliers and you just might […]
Posted inNews
Re-Christening the Golden Rule
“Hey hippie” was the tongue-in-cheek greeting on the electronic sign giving directions to the turn off on the Samoa peninsula to the Zerlang & Zerlang Boat Yard on Saturday, June 20. This was the first hint that the launching ceremony of the rebuilt sailing vessel Golden Rule was going to be a special mix of […]