Humboldt County, California: History
The original inhabitants of the area now known as Humboldt County include the Algic-speaking Wiyot and Yurok; Athabaskan peoples including the Hupa, Chilula, Whilkut, Tsnungwe, Mattole, Wailaki and Nongatl; and the Karuk, who speak an isolated language.
Spanish traders made unintended visits to California with the Manila Galleons on their return trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565. The first recorded entry by people of European origin was a landing by the Spanish in 1775 in Trinidad.
The first recorded entry of Humboldt Bay by non-natives was an 1806 visit from a sea otter hunting party from Sitka employed by the Russian-American Company. The party included New England captain Jonathan Winship, Russian supervisors, and Aleut hunters. The bay was not visited again by people of European origin until 1849 when Josiah Gregg's party arrived. The following year Douglas Ottinger and Hans Buhne sailed the schooner Laura Virginia into the bay. One of the pioneering passengers, Steven W. Shaw, proposed that the Laura Virginia Association name the bay Humboldt in honor of the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. The name was later applied to the county as a whole.
The area around Humboldt Bay was once solely inhabited by the Wiyot Native American tribe. One of the largest Wiyot villages, Tolowot, was located on Tuluwat Island (formerly Indian Island). Founded around 900 BC, it contains a shell shell midden 6 acres (2.4 ha) in size and 14 feet (4.3 m) deep. It was the site of the February 26, 1860, massacre of the Wiyot people that was recorded by Bret Harte, then living in Union, now called Arcata. Between 60 and 200 Wiyot men, women, and children were murdered that night in the midst of a religious ceremony. Tolowot is now a restricted site and a National Historic Landmark. In 2019, the Eureka City Council restored ownership of the island to the Wiyot tribe.
Humboldt County was formed in 1853 from a portion of neighboring Trinity County.
State historic landmarks in Humboldt County include Arcata and Mad River Railroad, California's First Drilled Oil Wells in Petrolia, Camp Curtis, Centerville Beach Cross, the city of Eureka, the Victorian town of Ferndale, Fort Humboldt, Humboldt Harbor Historical District, the Jacoby Building, The Old Arrow Tree, Old Indian Village of Tsurai, the Town of Trinidad, and Trinidad Head.
On February 5 and 6, 1885, Eureka's entire Chinese population of 300 men and 20 women were expelled after a gunfight between rival Chinese gangs (tongs) resulted in the wounding of a 12-year-old boy and the death of 56-year-old David Kendall, a Eureka City Councilman. After the shooting, an angry mob of 600 Eureka residents met and informed the Chinese that they were no longer wanted in Eureka and would be hanged if they were to stay in town past 3 p.m. the next day. They were put on two steamships and shipped to San Francisco. No one was killed in the expulsion. Another Chinese expulsion occurred during 1906 in a cannery on the Eel River, in which 23 Chinese cannery workers were expelled after objections to their presence. However, some Chinese remained in the Orleans area, where some white landowners sheltered and purchased food for the Chinese mineworkers until after racial tension passed. Chinese people did not return to the coastal cities until the 1950s.