Humboldt County Historical Society
Bellboy: A Mule Train Journey
By Margaret S. McClain
This historical novel recounts the true adventures of the author's father. In the 1870s, 12-year-old Jake, anxious to earn money for his family after his father's death, gets his first job as a bellboy for a pack train traveling the steep, rocky, frightening trails from Etna to Arcata. Riding out front on the bell mare, Lady, and feeling great loyalty and responsibility to the head packers who have entrusted him with the job, Jake confronts his fears as he pilots the train across the Devil's Backbone, faces a notorious bandit, and witnesses a tragedy caused by the whiskey drinking head packer of a train they are forced to pass on the steep and narrow Dougherty Bluffs. In Arcata, Jake sees the ocean for the first time.