Eureka ( ; Wiyot: ; Hupa: ; ) is a city in and the county seat of Humboldt County, located on the North Coast of California. The city is located on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt Bay, north of San Francisco and south of the Oregon border. At the 2020 census, the population of the city was 26,512 and the population of the greater Eureka area was 48,119.
Eureka is the largest coastal city between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, and the westernmost city of more than 25,000 residents in the 48 contiguous states.Eureka (city), California , State & County QuickFacts, January 10, 2013, note: in data set The proximity to the sea causes the city to have a maritime climate with very small annual temperature differences and seasons mainly being defined by the rainy winters and dry summers, whereas nearby inland areas are much hotter in summer. It is the regional center for government, health care, trade, and the arts on the North Coast north of the San Francisco Bay Area. Greater Eureka, one of California's major commercial fishing ports, is the location of the largest deep-water port between San Francisco and Coos Bay, a stretch of about .
The headquarters of both the Six Rivers National Forest and the North Coast Redwoods District of the California State Parks System are in Eureka. As entrepôt for hundreds of lumber mills that once existed in the area, the city played a leading role in the historic West Coast lumber trade. The entire city is a state historic landmark, which has hundreds of significant Victorian homes, including the nationally recognized Carson Mansion, and the city has retained its original 19th-century commercial core as a nationally recognized Old Town Historic District. Eureka is home to California's oldest zoo, the Sequoia Park Zoo.
History
Native Americans The Wiyot people lived in , now known as Eureka, for thousands of years before European arrival.LA Times - Newsletter: Eureka returns an island to a tribe nearly 160 years after a massacre Their traditional coastal homeland ranges from the Little River in the north to Bear River Ridge in the south, including the entire coastline of Humboldt Bay, stretching inland to the mountains. The Wiyot people are particularly known for their basketry and fishery management. An extensive collection of intricate basketry of the area's indigenous groups exists in the Clarke Historical Museum in Old Town Eureka.
The Yurok people share linguistic and cultural practices with the Wiyot people, and their traditional territory is located to the north of Eureka. The Yurok Tribe's language revitalization program is seen by many as the most successful of its kind in California, and , Eureka High School has the largest Yurok language program of any school.
Founding on Humboldt Bay
For nearly 300 years after 1579, European exploration of the coast of what would become northern California repeatedly missed definitively locating Humboldt Bay because of a combination of geographic features and weather conditions which concealed the narrow bay entrance from view. Despite a well-documented 1806 sighting by Russian explorers, the bay was not definitively known by Europeans until an 1849 overland exploration provided a reliable accounting of the exact location of what is the second-largest bay in California. The timing of this discovery led to the May 13, 1850, founding of the settlement of Eureka on its shore by the Union and Mendocino Exploring (development) companies.
Gold Rush era
After the primary California Gold Rush in the Sierras, Humboldt Bay was settled with the intent of providing a convenient alternative to the long overland route from Sacramento to supply miners on the Trinity, Klamath and Salmon Rivers where gold had been discovered. Though the ideal location on Humboldt Bay adjacent to naturally deeper shipping channels ultimately guaranteed Eureka's development as the primary city on the bay, Arcata's proximity to developing supply lines to inland gold mines ensured supremacy over Eureka through 1856.
"Eureka" received its name from a Greek word meaning "I have found it!" This statement of successful (or hopeful) gold rush miners is also the official motto of the State of California. Eureka is the only U.S. location to use the same seal as the state for its seal.Seal of California , Native Sons of the Golden West, Redwood Parlor No. 66. Retrieved February 14, 2013
Wiyot Massacre
Incoming settlers began encroaching on Wiyot people by cutting off their access to ancestral sources of food in addition to the outright theft of their land. Fort Humboldt was established by the U.S. Army on January 30, 1853, to establish peaceful relations between Native Americans, gold-seekers and settlers, often at the expense of the life and liberty of the Native people. The fort was commanded by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Robert C. Buchanan of the U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment. These tensions between Native people and settlers eventually led to the massacre on Tuluwat Island in 1860. The attackers, who were thought to be composed primarily of Eureka businessmen, killed as many as 250 Wiyot people. The Wiyot men had left the island during their annual World Renewal Ceremony, so the victims were primarily children, women, and elderly tribal members.Norton, Jack (1979). Genocide in northwestern California : when our worlds cried. San Francisco: Indian Historian Press.Pg 82 ASIN B0006CYZSK Retrieved July 30, 2020. Major Gabriel J. Rains, Commanding Officer of Fort Humboldt at the time, reported to his commanding officer that a local group of vigilantes had resolved to "kill every peaceable Indian – man, woman, and child." Although the perpetrators were known, they never faced any legal consequences. Remaining Wiyot people took refuge at Fort Humboldt, but they were not given adequate living accommodations, and so half of them died from starvation or exposure.
In 2004, the City of Eureka voted unanimously to return of Tuluwat Island to the Wiyot Tribe as an act of reparation.
Lumber industry Eureka's first post office opened in 1853 just as the town began to carve its grid plan into the edge of a forest it would ultimately consume to feed the building of San Francisco and points beyond. Many of the first immigrants who arrived as prospectors were also lumbermen, and the vast potential for industry on the bay was soon realized, especially as many hopeful gold miners realized the difficulty and infrequency of striking it rich in the mines. By 1854, after only four years since the founding, seven of nine mills processing timber into marketable lumber on Humboldt Bay were within Eureka. A year later, 140 lumber schooners operated in and out of Humboldt Bay moving lumber from the mills to booming cities along the Pacific coast. By the time the charter for Eureka was granted in 1856, busy mills inside the city had a daily production capacity of 220,000 board feet. This level of production, which would grow significantly and continue for more than a century, secured Eureka as the "timber capital" of California. Eureka was at the apex of rapid growth of the lumber industry because of its location between huge coast redwood forests and its control of the primary port facilities. Loggers brought the enormous redwood trees down. Dozens of movable narrow gauge railroads brought trainloads of logs and finished lumber products to the main rail line, which led directly to Eureka's wharf and waiting schooners. By the 1880s, railroads eventually brought the production of hundreds of mills throughout the region to Eureka, primarily for shipment through its port. After the early 1900s, shipment of products occurred by trucks, trains, and ships from Eureka, Humboldt Bay, and other points in the region, but Eureka remained the busy center of all this activity for over 120 years. These factors and others made Eureka a significant city in early California state history.
Commercial center A commercial district with Victorian-style buildings rose near the waterfront in the late 19th century, reflecting prosperity experienced during this era. Hundreds of these Victorian homes remain today, of which many are restored and a few have remained in their original state. The Carson Mansion on 2nd and M Streets is a notable example. The home was built between 1884 and 1886 by renowned 19th-century architects Newsom and Newsom for lumber baron William M. Carson. This project was designed to keep mill workers and expert craftsman busy during a slow period in the industry. Old Town Eureka, the original downtown center, has been restored and has become an arts center. The Old Town area has been declared an Historic District by the National Register of Historic Places. The district is made up of over 150 buildings including lodgings, restaurants, and small shops selling items from glassware to wood-burning stoves, and a variety of locally created art.
Fishing, shipping, and boating Eureka's founding and livelihood was and remains linked to Humboldt Bay, the Pacific Ocean, and related industries, especially fishing. Salmon fisheries sprang up along the Eel River as early as 1851, and, within seven years, 2,000 barrels of cured fish and of smoked salmon were processed and shipped out of Humboldt Bay annually from processing plants on Eureka's wharf. In 1858, the first of many ships built in Eureka was launched, beginning an industry that spanned scores of years. The bay is also the site of the West Coast's largest oyster farming operations, which began its commercial status in the nineteenth century. Eureka is the home port to more than 100 fishing vessels (with an all-time high of over 400 in 1981) in two modern marinas which can berth approximately 400 boats within the city limits and at least 50 more in nearby Fields Landing, which is part of Greater Eureka. Area catches historically include, among other species, salmon, tuna, Dungeness crab, and shrimp, with historic annual total fishing landings totaling about in 1981.
Chinese expulsion
Racist views of Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century led to violent attacks on them by White settlers across the West, both before and after the Chinese Exclusion Act. Economic downturns resulting in competition for jobs fed sinophobia and violent actions against Chinese immigrants, especially on the Pacific coast. In February 1885, Eureka City Councilman David Kendall was caught in the crossfire of two rival Chinese gangs and killed. A group of 600 White vigilantes forcibly and permanently evicted all 480 Chinese residents of Eureka's Chinatown.Lowen, James W., Sundown Towns, Eureka, CA , Illinois.edu, 1997–2010
Among those who guarded the city jail during the height of the sinophobic tension was James Gillett, who went on to become Governor of California. The anti-Chinese ordinance was repealed in 1959.
Queen City of the Ultimate West