Humboldt County Historical Society

Our Town's First Prep-school

Monday, Oct 29, 2007

One of Eureka’s most spectacular fires occurred on May 23, 1892, when the Eureka Academy and Business College on 5th Street, between K and L Streets, went up in flames.

Eureka Business College

Twelve-year-old Joseph Prince Tracy wrote in his diary: “Fire alarm from box 5-2 at 12:41 p.m. while we were eating dinner . . . the flames went up as high as the top steeple of the Christian Church. Edith and I went out afterwards and found 1 leaf of Webster’s Dictionary, 1 leaf of a novel . . .”The school had been established in 1886 by Prof. Neil S. Phelps as a private boarding and day school. There was no high school in Eureka and the Academy served as a prep school, offering academics as well as business skills, and also had an “Academy Normal” for training teachers.

But something may have gone awry. In a Spring 2005 Humboldt Historian article, Ann Roberts notes that Phelps originally leased the Academy, adding a third story. Then on March 3, 1893, Phelps purchased the building for one dollar, “along with assumption of its debts and assignment of its insurance,” writes Roberts. Two months later the academy burned down, and Phelps “left town.”

The Academy was soon reborn, however, as the Eureka Business College and in this new incarnation endured for almost sixty years. Chauncey Craddock, the new owner and principal, presided for forty-five years, long enough to see the grandchildren of his early students graduate.

According to the Humboldt Standard of January 13, 1928, the academy was “a pathetic affair” before the arrival of Craddock, who purchased the school’s first typewriter in 1893. But things may not have been as bad all that during the Phelps era. The June 3, 1892 Humboldt Standard reports: “J. B. Tilley of Arcata, who graduated from the Eureka Academy and Business College, left for San Francisco and has already secured a position . . . as a bookkeeper and stenographer in the SPRR office at 4th and Townsend St.”

Craddock did seem to be especially well-suited to his educational enterprise, however. Thousands of Humboldters attended Eureka Business College and scores of Humboldt businesses were staffed by its graduates. Both men and women attended.

In 1912, eighteen-year-old Irene Junell of Eureka graduated from the Business College and went to work in the office of the County Clerk, Fred M. Kaye. At nineteen she became the Deputy County Clerk, and five years later she issued her own marriage license.

Edward Myers of Fortuna graduated in 1908 and got his first job with the firm of Ferrill and Palmtag, “who had a real estate and insurance office on G Street,” Myers recalled in the July 1960 HCHS Newsletter.

Local newspapers liked to refer to Craddock as “strictly business,” but there is evidence for his having a “strictly fun” dimension as well. An eager baseball fan, Craddock formed the Eureka Business College Baseball Club and was always on hand to cheer for his team. He also sponsored regular dances in decorated halls for his students and their guests.

And he was not averse to pranks. In a Humboldt Times column, Will Speegle once recalled the day Craddock and a group of “kindred spirits” went to the E. D. Higgins candy parlor on Third Street, between E and F, and removed ice-cream dishes while Higgins’ back was turned. Then the group walked around the block, returned to Higgins’ parlor and offered to trade the dishes, which they claimed came from Littlefield’s store, for ice cream. Higgins agreed to this trade four times that afternoon, and at the end of the day believed he had secured twenty new dishes in exchange for ice-cream servings.

Times Standard Article Index
by date