Humboldt County, California

Humboldt County lies along the Pacific coast, directly south of Del Norte. Its area is 4,093 square miles, and its population, given by the census of 1880 as 15,512, is now 30,000. Eureka, the county seat, is on Humboldt Bay, the best harbor between San Francisco and Puget Sound, and has a population of 8,000. Other towns are Areata, Trinidad, Rohnerville and Ferndale. The surface of Humboldt is extremely rugged, being broken by many spurs of the Coast range, and it has several navigable streams, chief of which are the Klamath and Trinity rivers. More than 450,000 acres are covered with the heaviest growth of redwood in the state, while there are 200,000 acres of pine, cedar, spruce and fir. The timber yet uncut amounts to more than the entire timber reserve of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Naturally lumbering is the chief industry. Lumber exports for 1887 were 104,519,726 feet. Only about 30,000 acres are under cultivation, but Humboldt grain, potatoes and fruit are well known for superior quality. Mining is extensively carried on in the northern part, and ship-building and stock-raising are sources of wealth. The assessed valuation in 1889 was $18,440,872.

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Source: California State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1890, Volume II, R. L. Polk & Company, 1890.