Humboldt County Historical Society

06/17/2026

JUNE 28th!!! Come support our friends at the Eureka Heritage Society for the Home & Garden Tour!

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06/03/2026

Introducing the SUMMER issue of the Humboldt Historian. Be sure your membership is up to date to receive your copy of the most recent issue - link below! On the cover is a photo from the 1984 Salmon Creek Community School Auction, a time-honored local tradition.

This edition features Ray Raphael’s last installment of "Interviewing Local Historians," which focuses on the efforts of Mary Ann McCulloch, Dolores Vellutini and Ted Loring preserving the historic architecture of Eureka. Ray will continue contributing to the Humboldt Historian with a new column, so stay tuned!

Dr. Alex Service returns with another hard-hitting historical investigation! This time, we are introduced to Dr. Mary Blackmar, a pioneering female doctor, who was found to be practicing in locally in 1870. We are taken back to the 1920s with the article “Interviewing Bug Creek Alumni,” which covers rural Humboldt County schooling – featuring whimsical stories from both students and teachers. Then, we dive deep into the history of the Pacific Lumber Company and the personalities that shaped the enterprise, starting with the Murphy family. Our Cal Poly Humboldt intern, Meagan McKinney, contributes a piece on Maxxam’s hostile takeover of PalCo. This article focuses on the financial history of a contentious era in Humboldt County, and sheds light upon the actions of Maxxam’s CEO, Charles Hurwitz, and his allies on Wall Street.

Local LGBTQ+ event organizer Robert Frechou wrote a historical reflection on Humboldt County’s drag scene and contributed several never-before-seen photos and digitized videos for the project. We close the Summer issue with a piece from our own bookstore manager, Deborah Baskette, dismantling a pervasive local rumor – Eureka’s supposed underground tunnel systems!

BECOME A MEMBER: https://www.humboldthistory.org/checkout/donate?donatePageId=6439d4ea3354cd53d3961089

05/21/2026

The Humboldt County Historical Society is proud to be a part of the Bold Day of Giving Event on May 29th! Register at the link below! All of your generosity directly supports our operations at HCHS.

https://bolddayofgiving.mightycause.com/team/HumCoHistorical

“Access Humboldt is spearheading this County-wide giving initiative as a rapid response to the region's current needs and shifting economy. By providing the media, advertising, consulting, software, and 8 Step Workbook Plan, we are using our mission to support Humboldt County's Non-Profits' missions."

A resource for researchersFor over half a century the Humboldt County Historical Society has been a repository for local historic materials. Collections that are unique to our archive include hundreds of maps, over 65,000 photographs, historic business records and criminal...

05/07/2026

Our generous members and the general public bring us donations for our collections on a regular basis, but recently a very special donation came to us from the daughter of one of our past presidents Wallace Martin. His daughter Mary Jerland donated this very early Records of Survey book from the very early days of Humboldt County. Survey No. 1 was recorded in this document by County Surveyor of Humboldt County, J.S. Murray on the sixteenth day of July 1853. Many more early surveys are recorded in this book through the 1870s. Come see us at the Humboldt County Historical Society for this and many other historical treasures.

05/01/2026

The Maple Creek Elementary School class of 1986-1987, who will be featured in the upcoming Humboldt Historian magazine! This photo came to us courtesy of HCHS friend Bill Carlson and the teachers are listed as Mary Robel, Shannon Wiley and Teresa Baginski, while the students’ names are thus far unidentified. Do you recognize yourself or someone you know? Write in and help us identify folks!

Is your membership up to date? As a member with HCHS, you receive a copy of the current Humboldt Historian magazine, and access to our backlog of issues on the digital archive! The Summer magazine drops June 1st! Keep your dues up and let’s talk history! Link below 🔗

https://www.humboldthistory.org/checkout/donate?donatePageId=6439d4ea3354cd53d3961089

04/08/2026

The Humboldt County Historical Society will be closing early today (April 8, 2026) due to staffing shortages. We will close at 4pm today instead of the usual 5:30pm. Sorry for the inconvenience.

04/08/2026

The Cal Poly Humboldt History Department, in conjunction with Humboldt County Historical Society and Humboldt Asian & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity, invite you to a free screening and discussion with the director of Samurai in the Oregon Sky, Illana Sol. Come on down to Cal Poly Humboldt Library room 209 on Friday, April 17th at 6:00 pm!

“In 1942, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita catapulted his seaplane off of a submarine, flew over the forests of southern Oregon, and conducted the only manned aerial bombings of the United States mainland during WWII. He never dreamed he would one day be invited back to the region, where he would begin a 35-year friendship with the people of a small Oregon town. Samurai in the Oregon Sky tells the story of how Mr. Fujita came to refer to his former target as his ‘second home.’”

03/04/2026

Introducing the SPRING issue of the Humboldt Historian. Be sure your membership is up to date to receive your copy of the most recent issue - link below!

https://www.humboldthistory.org/checkout/donate?donatePageId=6439d4ea3354cd53d3961089

This edition features Ray Raphael interviewing historian Katy Tahja, our own Deborah Baskette contributes an investigation into the life of a Black woman living in 19th century Eureka, and historian Stephanie Valdovinos speaks on the Eel River’s rocky relationship with the town of Myers Flat. Much of this issue focuses on the history of healthcare; with articles such as a local child surviving polio in 1928, an engineer reflecting on his unusual work at the Humboldt County Hospital in the 1930s, and a young mother who survived Eureka’s Tuberculosis Ward in the 1940s. In that vein, we also have the life story of Dr. Sam Burre, as told by himself, and his insight into how his work ethic was inspired by his first-generation Sicilian parents.

ON THE COVER:
This edition, we are happy to highlight the history of local healthcare, both from the professional and patient perspectives. Here at HCHS, we are lucky to house the archives from the old General Hospital, which include decades of high-quality photographs. Throughout these photos, it is clear that there was a gifted photographer onsite for many staff events.

This can be seen through this May 1982 photo of the General Hospital First Aid Station, a hydration and emergency response station, which staff and volunteers manned at several marathons throughout the decade. This station is set up along a marathon route near the town of Bridgeville. However, the exact running event has not been definitively identified, nor have the woman and child in the center. Below are different views from the event, confirmed to have been taken at the same location and date. Write in or email [email protected] if you believe you know!

02/27/2026

Did you miss Lynette Mullen's presentation on Humboldt County brothels? Well, good news! We uploaded the full talk to our Youtube channel! Click the link below to see what our members learned from the Annual Luncheon. Thank you to Lynette and we look forward to the book!

Historian Lynette Mullen presents at the Humboldt County Historical Society's 2026 Annual Luncheon. She takes us through her research on the brothels of Humb...

02/24/2026

Thank you to all who joined us for the Annual Luncheon! It was a lovely afternoon filled with good food, drinks and local history. See you next year!

Special thanks to our presenter Lynette Mullen and all our wonderful vendors - Septentrio Winery, Miles Garrett Wines, Eel River Brewing, and Uniquely Yours Catering for making it an awesome day!