Jim Howard stands in front of his shop at 310 E Street on closing day, August 17, 1990. Howard opened business at the shop on August 17, 1954. All photos via The Humboldt Historian, from Jim Howard’s archives, unless otherwise noted.

He shined the shoes of lumber baron William Carson, boxing champion Joe Louis and U.S. Senator Alan Cranston. He’s been a grand jury member (1971), a vice president of Eureka Rotary and was a member of the Eureka City Council for eighteen years.

Now retired, Jim Howard can recall a lifetime of challenges and of positive associations. Howard came to Eureka from Athens, Georgia, where he had been born on December 1, 1915. In 1916, after his father had died in a construction accident, his mother, Julia Palmer Howard, brought the six-month-old James and his three-year-old sister, Janet, to Humboldt County.

The bereaved family moved in with Mrs. Howard’s sister, Alice Turk, and her husband. Will. Will Turk, who worked as a brickmaker at the Thompson Brick Yard on Bay Street in Eureka, had come to Eureka in 1912 with his wife and five children. For many years they were the only black family in Eureka.

A single black man, Robert Neloms, lived in Eureka in 1916, but left in 1917 after World War I broke out. Neloms went to work for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan, until he returned to Eureka in 1946. In the 1940s and ‘50s Bob Neloms operated a shoe shine stand at Coogie McDonough’s on F Street between Third and Fourth Streets. In 1918, Jim Howard’s aunt, Alice Turk, and his sister, Janet, died in the influenza epidemic. Jim’s mother later married her brother-in-law, Will Turk, and had nine children: John, Josephine, Mildred, Carl Wallace (named after Dr. Carl Wallace), Katherine, Sara Lee, Juanita, Vivian, and Cecelia.

Bob Neloms, left, and Will Turk at Turk’s shop at 310 E in 1950.

In the 1920s another black family, the LeDouxes, moved to Eureka. The LeDoux brothers, Albert and James, are listed as football players in the 1924 and 1925 Eureka High yearbook, the Sequoia. James LeDoux played on the Eureka High School undefeated Jay Willard Team in 1927. The LeDoux family left Eureka around 1930.

The Turk-Howard family again became the only black family in Eureka until World War II.

Jim Howard started his shining career in his stepfather’s shoe shine parlor, which Will had opened in 1918 next to Jimmy Dunn’s bar on Second Street between D and E Streets. While attending Eureka schools, Jim worked after school and on Saturdays.

In 1934 Jim began full-time work at Gems Shoe Shine, a shop operated by John Choulos on Fifth Street between D and E in Eureka. The shop boasted six marble stands. There, Jim worked twelve-hour shifts, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week. He earned $11.50 per week, at a time when shoe shines were fifteen cents. Tipping was a rare act during the Depression-plagued ‘30s. Jim remembers one generous customer, however: lumber baron William Carson would pay twenty-five cents to cover the standard fifteen-cent charge. In 1941, after the cost of a shine had risen to twenty-five cents, Jim began to earn twenty dollars per week.

The war years brought new opportunities. Jim left the shoe shine business in 1942 to work at California Barrel Factory in Arcata, which manufactured a variety of wooden barrels for worldwide distribution. Jim operated a crane on the swing shift from 1942 until March 1953.

Further enterprises called during the prosperous postwar years. In 1950, Jim and his wife, Edith, whom he had married on July 6, 1948, in Reno, purchased a hotel called the Ebony Rooms, The eleven-room hotel, located on Second Street between E and F Streets across from the High Lead Bar, catered to men who worked in construction. Each room contained three to four beds.

The Howards ran the hotel for three years before deciding to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in March, 1954, where Jim operated a milk truck. The move was short-lived, however, as the Howards returned to Eureka in less than one year and Jim purchased his shoe shine shop at 310 E Street,

The shop at 310 E Street had been purchased by Jim’s stepfather, Will Turk, in 1938. Turk ran it until his death in October 1953, when Ed Curtis, who had previously operated a shoe shine shop on Third Street in the Ten Window Williams Building, took over the lease. After Curtis died in 1954, Jim Howard purchased the equipment and assumed the lease, which cost twenty-five dollars a month, payable to landlord Harry Adorni, The equipment included an all-leather four-chair stall that featured a bear head on each chair arm. The stall was just one of two specially crafted stalls that had been made for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. Jim used it at Jim’s Shoe Shine for thirty-six years, from August 17, 1954, until August 17, 1990.

Jim recalls that when he first started business, the competition was plentiful, “When I took over the stand in 1954, there were seven shoe shine shops in town. When I closed up, mine was the only one. When I started work with John Choulos in 1934 there were twelve to fifteen shoe shine stands in town run by Greeks and Italians,”

Jim’s first customer in 1954 was newspaper publisher Don O’Kane. O’Kane provided a profitable start to the fledgling business: he paid one dollar for the thirty-five cent shine, O’Kane also urged Jim to join the Eureka Chamber of Commerce, advice which Jim also followed profitably.

Several national celebrities sought out the services of Jim’s Shoe Shine. Joe Louis, the retired World Boxing Champion, visited in 1956, Jim found Louis to be cordial and friendly. A frequent visitor was Leo Nomelini, an all-pro football player and wrestler, who often enjoyed a shine at Jim’s place after a meal at the restaurant and bar next door. Jim also enjoyed visiting with customers Congressman Don Clausen and U.S. Senator Alan Cranston,

Jim’s brush with politics went farther than the shoe stand, however. From 1969 to 1972 he served on the Eureka Housing Authority. In 1972 Jim was appointed to the Eureka City Council Ward One, Jim was elected three times to the City Council and served until November 1990.

Jim Howard stands with Congressman Don Clausen at a reception in 1972.

For several years he served as president of the Eureka Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, He was a vice president and a member of the board of directors of the Eureka Rotary Club. He served on the 1971 Humboldt County grand jury.

Fellow members of the Eureka City Council remember Jim as a hard worker. Cliff Stewart said, “I served with Jim from 1980 to 1984, Jim was a quiet source of help for a new council member. You could always count on him to be honest and steady. Jim had real contact with a cross segment of the community and had a feel for everybody.”

Ernie Cobine served on the Eureka City Council from 1971 to 1979. “Jim had a great sense of humor. He was diligent in finding the facts on issues. He and his wife Edith were enjoyable to be around.”

Tom Hannah, who served on the council from 1984 to 1992, said, “Jim served the City of Eureka with distinction. He stood for the best that one would expect from an elected official. He was always prepared to deal with the major issues facing the City.”

In 1987 Jim’s wife, Edith, died. In 1990 Jim retired from business, but continues to help polish Eureka through service to Rotary, local nonprofit organizations, friends and family.

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The story above was originally printed in the Summer 1998 issue of The Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society, and is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.