Humboldt County is dotted with unique communities whose past and present are worth relating. Many of the books for sale at the Historical Society bookstore do exactly that. In one of those, John Meyers tells of "Trinidad: Looking Back >From My Front Porch."

       After being led from a casual interest into a research quest to dig up facts and sort out conflicting stories, Meyers wrote a book "as though you and I were sitting on the front porch and in my old age I'm just telling interesting and fun stories that I remember."

       In an enjoyable style that is casual and not academically pedantic, he relates the early influx of several Native American tribes, their scattered settlements and then the arrival of the Spanish, Russians and finally the Euro-Americans who engaged in fur trading, gold hunting, and eventually timber, milling and whaling. Along with pictures from the Trinidad Museum, he sprinkles his historical accounts with entertaining anecdotes touching on local topics such as establishing a lighthouse, cemeteries, rugged wagon trails, railroads, fires, earthquakes and local wartime efforts. He finishes his work with an light-hearted glossary of nautical terms both for the layman and "the really curious and geeky person in your group."

        Indeed, this is a fun and informative book shedding new light on one of Humboldt's most iconic communities.