Then And Now - Exclusion and Eradication

Camp Lincoln Commanding Officer's House - ca. 1962

A United States military post was established at this location northeast of Crescent City on September 12, 1862 when troops from Fort Terwaw were relocated after it was wiped out by flooding on the Klamath River. The post was intended to keep peace between the Native American tribes and the miners and settlers of northwestern California. Tensions had risen as increasing numbers of whites, many with secessionist views, moved into the area. At the same time, members of the Tolowa and other tribes were being forcibly resettled to a reservation in the Smith River Valley. With the resurgence of gold mining in the region in the Spring of 1862, the majority of white men left their farms to mine in the hills. The remaining population felt vulnerable to raids by the Native Americans and petitioned the government to remove them.

However, by the middle of 1863, hostilities had declined to the point where the Commanding Officer of the Humboldt Military District, Francis J. Lippitt, wrote “Camp Lincoln is useless. The few Indians left at Smith River are mostly old men, women and children, against whom whites need no protection.” It was abandoned in May 1870. The Commanding Officer’s quarters and one barracks are the only structures that remain.

 

Left image
Credit: Redwood National and State Park Archives

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

South Beach Crescent City - ca. 1915

At Elk Creek, on the north end of the long crescent beach that gives Crescent City its name, a Tolowa Village once existed. Known later as Indian Beach, the area of shacks in the photograph was first a whaler's camp in the 1850's, when Kanakas (Hawaiians) lived there. By 1916, some prostitutes lived in this area as it became exclusively a "red light district." The area no longer has any of its former shacks, nor had it in Easter 1964 when a tsunami wave swept the area clear.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Schoenrock Collection, Humboldt State University Library

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Eureka Chinatown - 1906

Chinese workers initially came to northwest California after the discovery of gold along the Trinity River in 1850. As the importance of redwood lumber grew, Humboldt County became a destination in the global movement of workers.

In the 1870s, Chinese workers built many of Humboldt County’s first roads and worked in lumber mills, ran laundries, and worked in salmon canneries. Eureka’s one-square-block Chinatown was depicted in the local press as particularly rife with sin, crime and contamination. There were false rumors of leprosy. Yet white people enjoyed eating in Chinese restaurants, watching dragon parades, and collecting Chinese porcelains.

Tensions arose when the Chinese willingness to work long hours provoked contempt as lumbermen were organizing to establish an eight to ten hour day.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Humboldt County Collection Photos, Humboldt State University

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Excluded Chinese Men on Eureka Dock - 1906

In 1882, conflict erupted in Eureka’s Chinatown when a gunfight between Chinese residents accidently killed a white city councilman. White mobs broke into stores and looted and then forced Chinese to the docks to get them out of town. Within two days, there was not a single Chinese person left in Eureka. Later, white men went on strike after Fay’s Shingle Mill in Fairhaven (Samoa Island) hired 22 Chinese workers.. Lumbermen, financed by lumber baron John Vance and led by the Knights of Labor, marched to the mill and forced Fay to ship his Chinese employees out of the county on the next boat. Other mill owners followed suit.

The towns of Crescent City, Arcata, Salmon Creek, Ferndale and Springville (now Fortuna) followed Eureka’s lead and expelled their Chinese residents around the same time.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Photographer: J.A. Meiser; Palmquist Collection, Humboldt State University Library

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Anti-Chinese Protest in Fortuna - 1906

For 14 years after 1892, the Humboldt County Business Directory could claim they were “the only county in the state containing no Chinamen. But in 1906, 27 Chinese working men were secretly snuck back into the county to work at a cannery at Port Kenyon near the mouth of the Eel River.

The response was swift and forceful. The Humboldt Times of October 3, 1906 wrote, “A thousand or more woodsmen are ready to flock to Fortuna from every nook and corner of the county … to eject the Chinese at Port Kenyon.” The Sacramento Union reported on October 4 that “Five hundred woodsmen convened at Fortuna this morning and demanded a guarantee be given that by 5 o’clock the Chinese would be deported.” By October 10, all of the Chinese workers were gone.

This pair of photos is located outside the boundaries of Redwood National and State Parks.

 

Left image
Credit: Images of America: "Fortuna and the Eel River Valley" by Fortuna Depot Museum  Arcadia Publishing 2011

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

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