Fort Humboldt

  Visitors to Eureka driving along Broadway may notice the sign for Fort Humboldt and even visit the small state park. Locals enjoy it for school field trips and the annual “Donkey Days” celebrating logging machinery and our timber heritage.

            Otherwise, this landmark is largely forgotten although it was once a pivotal part of our history. Opened in January 1853, it was the first in a chain of area forts established to deal with the so-called “Indian troubles” – bloody clashes between the settlers and the tribes whose land was being taken.

            Though they did mitigate some of the worst conflicts, the soldiers here generally aimed at quelling Indian resistance. At times, captured Indians were imprisoned adjacent to the fort or sent for detainment across the bay on the Samoa peninsula.

            For the soldiers stationed here, this was generally considered an undesirable posting. Separated from family and social life, their rations were limited, though local “mountain man” Seth Kinman supplied the men with abundant elk meat.

            One of Fort Humboldt’s chief claims to fame was that for several months in 1853, Captain Ulysses S. Grant was stationed here. It was not a happy time for him. He hated the cold and damp, missed his family, and although loved by his men, was in constant conflict with his superior officer. Reportedly he often sought solace in the bars below the bluff in what was then the separate community of Bucksport. Soon he resigned altogether from the army, only returning with the advent of the Civil War.

            However, once Grant became a war hero and then President, Humboldt exalted his time here. Plaques were laid, statues built and the local ladies stitched him a grand quilt – which heirs later returned and is now housed at the Clarke Museum.

            In 1868, with the “Indian troubles” subsiding, Fort Humboldt was abandoned. Years of deterioration followed, with the site becoming a playground for neighborhood kids scavenging for bottles and military souvenirs.

            By the mid-20th century, however, interest rekindled in the historic site. The then property owner gave the land to the City of Eureka, and in 1955 it passed to the state becoming a State Historical Park. Archeologists and historian were deployed, buildings preserved or reconstructed and a museum opened. Fort Humboldt is once again significant to us.

            Like many aspects of history, the Fort has its good, bad and ugly sides, but all of it deserves remembering. That is what we do at the Humboldt County Historical Society - we preserve history. For detailed information on Fort Humboldt and many other aspects of local history, visit us!