Ferndale is a city in Humboldt County, California, United States. Its population was 1,398 at the 2020 census, up from 1,371 at the 2010 census. The city is well known for its dozens of well-preserved Victorian storefronts and homes. Ferndale is the northern gateway to California's Lost Coast and the city, which is sited on the edge of a wide plain near the mouth of the Eel River, is also located near extensive preserves of coast redwood forests.
History Before American settlement, Ferndale was a glade of giant ferns reaching more than , surrounded by alder, willow, Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, coast redwood, swampy land, and windswept prairies. The area was populated by the southern Wiyot people, and centered along the Eel River, where they caught lamprey eels, salmon and sturgeon in iris leaf fish nets and collected shellfish along the river and at its mouth, while cultivating a California species of tobacco.
The town was established in 1852 from settlement by Willard Allard, Seth Louis Shaw, and his brother, American portrait painter Stephen William Shaw. The settlement was incorporated in 1893.
Early settlers
In August 1852, Allard and the Shaw brothers borrowed a canoe from the Wiyots in the Table Bluff area and paddled it across the Eel and up Francis Creek to arrive with their supplies in the approximate vicinity of what is now Main and Shaw streets. In September 1852, they cleared a five-acre area of ferns and began building a cabin near the base of the Wildcat Road even though Allard was sick with ague. By January 1853, twelve men were living in the Shaws' cabin including Seth Kinman, who provided the group with meat, and Joseph Russ. About this time, Stephen Shaw painted the portrait of Wiyot elder Kiwelattah (or Ki-we-lah-tah) and kept a detailed journal of two years of trying to grow plants in cold coastal fog.
Seth Shaw settled in the area now marked by Main and Lewis streets where he began construction of the Gothic Revival style Shaw House on his property in 1854. The Shaw House served as the area's first polling place in 1854, post office and courthouse in 1863. in 1860 Seth Shaw was justice of the peace and postmaster, and his home served for many gatherings, although it was not finished until 1866. After having been away from the area for two years, Stephen Shaw sold his holdings in 1856 to Welsh-born Francis Francis (1818–1877) who later established the city's water system through pipes first laid in 1875.
Other small towns were established around Ferndale, including Centerville, Port Kenyon, Waddington, Grizzly Bluff, and Arlynda Corners. Produce from Ferndale was shipped out via Centerville and transferred to ships at anchor offshore prior to the opening of docks at Port Kenyon in 1876.
While the earliest settlers were English-speaking from Great Britain, New England, Canada, or Ireland, waves of immigrants arrived in Ferndale from Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and China.
Chinese settlement Chinese immigrants arrived in California in the earliest California gold rush days of the late 1840s, and were settled in all parts of Humboldt County almost as soon as English-speaking whites. They worked in gold mining on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers, before settling mostly in Eureka, with a few in outlying towns like Ferndale where two Chinese men owned clothes-washing businesses. Chinese laborers built parts of the Wildcat Road between Ferndale and Petrolia, dug out the water reservoirs for the Francis Water Company and worked at two fish canneries on the Eel River, although – as was the case in the rest of California – they were not truly welcome.
European immigration Germans began to arrive in the 1850s. The first was businessman Arnold Berding in 1857. Most Germans worked on ranches or were dairymen, but at least one owned the Milwaukee Brewery Depot Saloon. United States Congressman Don Clausen is descended from German settlers of Ferndale. German settlers organized St. Mark's Lutheran Church in 1906. Except for three Portuguese brothers who arrived in the 1870s and a few from mainland Portugal, most came from the Azores islands between 1900 and 1915. Ferndale Portuguese have celebrated their traditional Festival of the Holy Ghost since 1924. Danish settlers founded and built Our Savior's Lutheran Church in 1899 and dedicated Danish Hall, which had been built as a warehouse by Arnold Berding in the late 1880s, on October 10, 1929. The Swiss who settled in Ferndale from Italian- and German-speaking families included the Oeschgers, who moved to Ferndale in time for Joe Oeschger to play baseball at Ferndale High School before going to a career in Major League Baseball. A later influx of Romansh Swiss included the ancestors of College Football Hall of Fame coach Len Casanova. Sausage-making, salami-making and wine-making can be traced to Italians who arrived later than the Danish and Swiss, beginning around 1897.
Chinese expulsions In 1885, after a city councilman of the county seat Eureka was shot dead in the crossfire from two warring Chinese tong gangs, 480 Chinese residents were rounded up in two days and forced to relocate to San Francisco. A year later, the Cutting Packing Company brought in a crew of Chinese for the season. Following a heated meeting at Roberts Hall in Ferndale between local residents and an upset delegation from Eureka, the company guaranteed the workers would come nowhere near town and they were allowed to stay until the fishing season was over in December. Chinese crews were used again at the same cannery in 1887 and 1889.
In 1906, Eureka and Fortuna citizens were again up in arms at Ferndale's violation of the unwritten law of the county when the Starbuck–Talent Canning Company of Port Kenyon brought in 23 Chinese and four Japanese to work at the cannery. After threats of mass action, the Chinese were taken to an old cookhouse on Indian Island from which all whites were barred and where they were held until they left by sea. The Japanese were permitted to keep working for Starbuck–Talent.
Business and communications Dairies were founded from the Bear River Ridge to the south side of the Eel River starting in the late 1860s. Filled kegs of butter were transported along the beach river by four-horse teams from the Mattole to Centerville or Port Kenyon and the teams returned supplies from Ferndale. The 81 dairies from the southern area faded as the land along the Eel River Valley was settled for dairying, first by the Danes and later by other settlers. In the 1880s, multiple cooperative creameries in the Eel River valley began to process milk into butter; by 1904, the Central Creamery on Main Street Ferndale had combined the smaller operations into a more modern production facility.
The use of paper wrapping on butter to reduce air oxidation was pioneered in Ferndale at the suggestion of Chester E. Gray (1881–1944) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture who studied the problem of unrefrigerated fine butter turning white within hours of production. Gray patented a new spray-drying process (U.S. Patent #858,868 – 1907 and #1,157,935 – 1915) and went into business with Central Creamery owner Aage Jensen in a new dry-milk manufacturing process that used non-fat milk solids which had formerly been waste of the process. Their new plant processed 75,000 pounds of milk a day, shipping to San Francisco and filling contracts for the U.S. Navy. The first motorized milk truck was used here.
In 1916, Grey and Jensen moved to San Francisco and changed the company name to Golden State Creamery. Local Ferndale resident and Eureka newspaper editor Andrew Genzoli began recording the history of the Ferndale dairies during this time, culminating in scrapbooks of newspaper clippings from 1910 to 1954.
Ferndale was a crossroads village and provided lodging, horses, blacksmithing and other services both to individual travelers and the Overland Stage and Express line which ran from Eureka to Cloverdale with connections to San Francisco; over 80 hours of traveling for a cost of $20. The first stage line was founded in 1862 with daily trips from Eureka, Centerville, and Petrolia. In 1868, twice weekly stages ran to San Francisco and by 1871 daily service was available. The first automobiles were used for the stage runs in 1911, the same year as Fernbridge (bridge) was built, eliminating the need for ferry boat service.
In 1878, regular service on steamships carried produce, cargo and passengers from Port Kenyon, where, by 1897, 188,652 pounds of wool and 965,010 pounds of butter were shipped out along with grains, chickens, potatoes, lumber, eggs, hides, vegetables, and salmon. The steamer trade declined as the Salt River silted up, and the transport hub shifted to Eureka. The completion of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad in 1914 allowed for speedier transportation to Eureka and the San Francisco area. The track was built about five miles to the northwest of Ferndale in Fernbridge.
Main Street businesses supplied the needs of not only the Ferndale area, but for the inland Mattole Valley as well. They included banks, hotels, stables, variety and merchandise stores, hardware and grocery stores, farm and machine implements, butchers, blacksmiths shoemakers, barbers, tailors, milliners, saloons and gambling halls, billiard parlors, coopers, doctors, dentists, drug stores, lawyers, engineers, surveyors, real estate agents, several photographers, furniture makers, undertakers, a telegraph office, and a Wells–Fargo office.
Telephone and telegraph wires were run into the valley by private companies in the 1890s; by 1899, it was said that the telephone was in "almost universal use in this valley." In 1900, the telephone line was extended to the Mattole Oil fields in Petrolia. In 1911, the Eel River and Southern Telephone company consolidated operations around Ferndale, and, on February 6, 1960, dial telephones were introduced; the old switchboard and crank phones are on display at the Ferndale Museum.
The Ferndale Enterprise newspaper was founded on May 11, 1878, by three sons of the local Methodist minister and has published continuously since then, while moving offices and shifting from semi-weekly to weekly publication.
Incorporation and services Ferndale incorporated with a vote of 89 in favor and 47 against on August 17, 1893, primarily to organize drainage and prevent dogs and other animals from running loose, according to the earliest ordinances enacted. In 1915, the current firehouse was built as a combined firehouse and city hall.
After the 1875 fire which nearly destroyed south Main street was put out by volunteer bucket brigades, and after other smaller conflagrations, the City purchased a used Hunneman hand pumper fire engine on April 14, 1883. The side-stroke torrent pumper had been built in the 1850s and been shipped west in the 1860s. The name on the side of this engine was "Franklin" because the city bought it from the Franklin Fire Company of San Jose, California. The engine was transferred to the newly formed Ferndale Fire Department when they organized in February 1897. In November 1923, after 41 years in service, the hand pumper was shipped to the American LaFrance Company, "as part payment on the fine new pumper recently purchased by this town." Other sources say the engine was sold to a Hollywood film company.
Modern equipment arrived in 1905 with a motorized pumper engine, in 1917 with a Model T truck with chemical tanks, and in 1948 the Hook and Ladder Company formed. In 1883, water supplies were consolidated in local cisterns under present-day State Route 211 which were later filled in and water from the hill reservoirs was used to supply the hydrants.