Odd, Old News: A Time When Humboldt County Was Known For Its Spuds, Not Buds

Arcata Bottom-Long Shot-1948 [Photo courtesy of HSU Library Humboldt Room Special Collections, Schuster Collection]

In the 1860’s and ‘70’s, Humboldt County was known as the “potato county” for its prolific production of the potato variety known as “Humboldt Reds”. Once again, Odd Old News is indebted to Susie Baker Fountain and Charles Blake, this time, for an informative look at this very successful early farm crop and the devastating appearance of a potato blight that started the demise of the “Humboldt Red” reputation. Mr. Blake narrates the agricultural history of regional bottom lands, and the transition from growing potato crops to dairying on these same lands. His reflections on the technological changes that he had witnessed in his lifetime mirrors the views of many of our grandparents, or great-grandparents. This week Odd Old News takes a long look at the brief fame of our local potato crops, a time when potato sheds dotted the landscape.

THE EARLY DAYS OF HUMBOLDT
Blue Lake Advocate
January 16, 1958
Mrs. Eugene F. Fountain, Historian

The Humboldt Red sold for a higher price in the San Francisco market than any of the best varieties of potatoes in 1864-1865, and was considered by many to be the finest in the world. Visitors to this county were greatly impressed by the large fields planted with this crop and mentioned the prominence of the potato culture in their accounts of their travels. Stephen Powers*, an author of some note, described a farm on Arcata Bottom in October, 1871. His article appeared in a San Francisco newspaper and a portion is quoted below.

“The potatoes around Arcata are wonderful. They are just now in the full sap and greenness of their beauty and the fragrance of the growing vines can sometimes be inhaled a quarter of a mile distant—something I never noticed before. There are dozens and scores of fields as green as emerald and as clean of weeds as anything I saw in New Jersey. Upon the invitation of Mr. Hemming, I rode with him over his farm and saw perhaps the finest small field of potatoes that can be found on this coast —a field of peachblows. He has men employed even this late, cutting out weeds with hoes, in the old Eastern fashion, and even plucking out small thistles with their hands. I think an Eastern farmer would smile to see a man hoeing potatoes in October and with gloves on his hands.”

I suspect Mr. Powers meant Nicholas Heffron instead of Mr. Hemming. I can find no one of the latter name owning land around Arcata Bottom in 1871. Moreover it was reported of Mr. Heffron that “he was a very industrious man, working from morning early until evening late in the tilling of the soil. Potatoes he made his chief product and crops of these he raised in great numbers. He came to Humboldt County in 1861.” Shortly after his arrival he purchased of Thomas English forty acres of land near Alliance for $3,500. In 1872 his farm he sold to John McConagy. (I believe the ranch was located directly north of the farm of Isaac Minor.) However, Mr. Heffron owned several other ranches in addition to this one, in 1871 and it is impossible to know which one was visited by Mr. Powers.

Restore the “Humboldt Reds”
Under the above heading the Humboldt Times of February 6, 1889 made a moving plea to farmers of this region to rescue the product under discussion.
“Reference has several times been made in these columns to a fact that is universally regretted; namely, the deterioration of the once famous Humboldt potato. It was formerly the pride of our county, always quoted in the San Francisco market reports and it made us known beyond the limits of our state. It took high rank among our staple products, and thousands of tons went forward every year to San Francisco and were there distributed to every part of the state.
But for some cause, or more probably for a variety of causes, its glory has departed, and its cultivation is comparatively neglected. We are unwilling to believe, however, that it is hopelessly gone, or that it may not be restored to its primitive excellence. As one step in that direction, we would suggest that seed be procured from other localities beyond our borders, if such can be found where deterioration has not commenced.

We are informed that this superb variety is produced of superior quality on the bottom lands of Ten Mile River, on the coast of Mendocino, and we hope that some enterprising farmers will try the experiment of importing seed from that section. They could be conveniently shipped at Westport or Fort Bragg, and landed at small expense for transportation. We invite potato-growers to give their views of the feasibility of this plan through the columns of the Times.

In reply the Times received the following letter from C. Langdon, which was printed in the February 13, 1889 issue:

My attention was called to an article in the Times a few days since in which you expressed regret that the Humboldt Red potato had lost so much of the reputation and demand that it possessed in former years. The ‘departure of its glory’ is not the fault of the potato, but because our farmers have all exchanged it for other varieties. At the last State Fair I received the 1st premium for the best potatoes, and those were Humboldt Reds, raised by myself, and it was amusing to see how many people there were who stated that they had been in the habit of purchasing what they supposed was that variety, but was such only in name, as they did not know the difference.

The half bushel that I had at that time was given away in lots of three or four at a time to parties who wanted them for seed. When the blight or potato disease made such havoc a few years since, it was commonly supposed that it seized upon that variety more than others, and as a consequence farmers obtained other kinds, which have taken their place in great measure, but in reality the old Humboldt Red is just as good as ever.”

As this is a subject almost as foreign to my experience as lumbering, I turn the responsibility over to Charles Blake to continue the discussion of this important Humboldt product. He will inject more life into the question than anyone else, and his efforts to help this series over the holiday distractions are greatly appreciated.

Humboldt’s King was Red-Potato
by Charles Blake

Anyone who has read or studied the history of the discovery and settling of the Northern California Coast will realize that the motivating interest was not in the country itself, but only as an avenue to the Trinity mines. Thus, few of the first comers had any interest except to find a way to transport cargoes of supplies from the several landings on Humboldt Bay and at Trinidad to points on Trinity River as well as to the upper Klamath and Salmon Rivers.

Just how long, before some enterprising ex-farmer discovered the wonderful fertility of the soil and the long growing season, I do not know, but I venture it was not long. These early farmers found ready market for their produce, not only with those who were engaged in transportation, but their surplus found ready market in the mines, for these men were starved for garden food after living on beans and bread with their infrequent fresh meat taken from the country.
For many years this market took care of all the farm surplus, for there was great demand for hay and barley to support the hundreds of horses and mules required for the long pack trains that served from Humboldt City, Union, (Arcata) and Trinidad and later, Eureka. Potatoes, carrots and cabbage were shipped to the interior and every one prospered.

There came a time when the demand not only decreased at the mines as bar after bar was worked out, but many more pioneers took up farming as they discovered what abundant crops could be raised on the lands surrounding the Bay and on the rich alluvial lands in the river valleys where very large yields of barley and oat hay could be raised. The grain was large and full, but the dark weather gave the grain a dark look that caused it to be rejected on the San Francisco market where it was in competition with the grain grown in the dry valleys. The oat hay was in competition with the grain grown in the dry valleys. The oat hay also was dark and could not be sold in the City.

These were serious handicaps for the farmer of Humboldt, which were causing a real economic difficulty until they discovered that potatoes yielded enormous crops of very fine grade and that they were in demand not only in the mines and logging camps but were equally appreciated on the San Francisco market for they were superior to potatoes grown in the dry hot valleys. It was not long until every year more and more acreage was planted and in the late fall the ships left the Bay laden with potatoes instead of lumber.

All of the sloughs that lead from the bay back into the farm land were lined with “Potato Houses” where the rancher brought his crops to load on the barges that would come up the slough on an incoming tide and load and drift out on the next ebb tide and be towed or pulled to the docks for reloading onto the sea-going ships. At the south end of the Bay there were many of these storing sheds as the farmers from the Eel River country hauled their crops over Table Bluff to Hookton and McNulty’s Landing and in fact every slough up which a barge could be polled and a potato shed could be built.

There were days when the teams were backed nearly to the top of Table Bluff hill, waiting to get to the sheds with their loads. Arcata Bottom farmers were fortunate for many of the ranches had deep water sloughs running through their farms and had their own sheds. I remember seeing what looked like miles of these buildings, where the crop was hauled and stored until they could be sorted and sacked ready for shipment.

The main crop potato raised was known as the Humboldt Red, a very heavy cropper, often producing twenty to twenty-five tons to the acre. This tonnage at the average price of $20.00 a ton, made a handsome return to the farmer and the “Humboldt Red” was crowned the King of crops.

These conditions continued for many years for the virgin land seemed never to be exhausted, and the farmer came to depend on his potato crop for his bank account. Finally came a year when the potatoes seemed if anything better than usual, right up to a few weeks before harvesting and one morning it looked as though the Black Death had struck the fields and the potato vines were down and black, as though they had been frosted and many thought this had happened. The farmer dug into the potato hills and found the tubers were full and apparently sound. They went ahead and dug the crop and hauled it to the potato sheds as usual to store until sacking and shipping, but they were never shipped, for soon after they were stored the potatoes just disintegrated, went into a mass of evil smelling semi-liquid that oozed through the floors and cracks of the wall and drained into the water of the bay.

The “Red King Potato” had fallen along with prosperity of many of the farmers, for they had the cost of seed and labor of cultivating and harvesting. Some went into their sheds and scooped the mess into the sloughs while others just let the whole thing rot down. For many years the “Blight” a sort of fungus, made the potato crop a hazard for the whole country but finally lessened.

Of late years, Humboldt has raised fine potatoes but not the old Humboldt Red as the Burbank variety seems more resistant and gives a good yield of fine quality, but changing times has diverted the man of the soil, into other lines of endeavor, dairying.

In the old days I have known farmers who did not have a cow, even to furnish milk for the table and if he had butter he had to buy it in town and after his potatoes let him down, many were in bad straights as the old embargo was still on his hay and grain in the markets of the State. About this time some Danish emigrants arrived and at once recognized the possibilities of dairying and rented some of the old potato ranches and started with a few cows, setting the milk and making butter at which they were adept.

Many more Danes arrived and soon established public creameries in the communities at a cross-roads and hauled their whole milk to these, usually co-operative plants. Now the Cow became Queen and whole bottom land of the county came under her domain.

Ferndale, in the Eel River Valley became the Capitol, with very large creameries and butter factories and Loleta was the seat of a nationally known butter factory and Humboldt entered upon a new era, one of great prosperity.

These original Danish immigrants soon became financially independent and left their ranches to their sons and daughters and moved to the towns and built for themselves fine homes of the style of the latter years of the nineteenth century.

The writer has vivid memories of the first generation of the Danish families. They were wonderful boys and girls, mostly large and good natured and ready for a good time at a dance. The girls were so husky that they could take most anyone of us boys right off our feet in “Swing your partners” in a quadrille, then set us down on our feet and laugh at us. We used to call them the “Butter-milk-Girls.”

At a later date the Danes leased out their ranches in smaller parcels to the Italian and Portuguese who carried on the dairy farms. As I have not known much of Humboldt for the last forty years, I am not up-to-date on my facts so do not know who is who now.

I do know you have gone into a new era of industry and perhaps a different state of agriculture, as well. The old days of logging with the “Bull” team, dragging three or four big logs right from the woods to the mill, as they did to the old Chandler mill in Blue Lake in the early ’80’s gave-way later to powerful “Bulldonkeys” that brought in long strings of logs down the well built skid road.

Then came the High Line that picked up the logs from where they lay and took them out to the loading station and now the logging trucks go way back in the hills many miles and haul the logs to some small mill that is near transportation. Farming and logging have gone from ox and hand labor to the mechanized age. I feel that I have been privileged to live in a wonderful era, to have spanned from the buck-board and pack mule, the pick and shovel and the wheelbarrow to this day of motorcars, big truck rigs and the great earth-movers that can level a mountain in a day. Many nights I lie awake reviewing the almost unbelievable changes that have taken place, just during my life-span and trying to visualize what can be done and accomplished in the next three score and ten years, in order to keep up the tempo that has been set; that brought in the electric light, the telephone, the internal combustion engine, that gave us the automobile, the airplane and radio with television and now the Jet Age with supersonic speeds.

We have covered the whole earth, we have conquered the air above the earth and now the outer space has been invaded. In the words of the old War One song I shall close, “Where shall we go from here, Boys, soon became financially independent”.

* Mrs. Fountain refers to a news article about the blight that was written by Stephen Powers. Powers was primarily known for his “journalistic anthropology” articles on Native Americans written for the Overland Journal, and later published as Indian Tribes of California in 1874.

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• When U.S. Grant Was Stationed at Old Fort Humboldt
• Odd, Old News: Fruit Raising in Southern Humboldt
• The Big War on Marijuana–100 Years Ago
• Eager Businessmen, Big Talk, and Railroad Progress–Round Valley Coal Fields, Part Two
• The Sad Saga of Big Diamond, Humboldt County’s First Elephant Fatality
• Dog Tales…
• Early Plans for an East West Railroad to Humboldt County
• Northern California in the Seventies
• The Pioneer Philanthropist
• The Horrible History of Round Valley, Part One
• The Horrible History of Round Valley (Part 2)