The time has come, once again, to fire up the LoCOTron 3000 and review the year that was through the lens of The Only Metric That Matters™ — that is, traffic to the Lost Coast Outpost website. We scry the guts of the analytics to see what they say about the last 12 months … and about ourselves, the Humboldt clicking public.
What do we find? This year, like most years, was a rich stew. We like fun (Hollywood stars, ambitious songwriters) and triumph (dams blown up with explosives) and fear (police standoffs, car crashes, earthquakes) and excitement (campus occupation). We also like to exercise other parts of our brains, those generally rated higher than the amygdala. We like deep dives on local industry and infrastructure, and we care about who and what we choose to represent us, as citizens in a democracy.
We’re doing OK, Humboldt! Here’s to an even better 2025!
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25. (VIDEO) Shirtless Man Spews Racial Insults, Teen Girl Appears to Aim Gun at Onlookers During Arcata Plaza Confrontation; Three Detained After Traffic Stop
We kick off our countdown with a little bit of redneck mayhem on the Arcata Plaza. No one was hurt, or at least not seriously. The gun the teenage girl was wielding turned out to be a BB gun.
What a shitshow! It feels like this kind of thing happens elsewhere more often than it does here, though maybe that is not accurate.
24. Iraqi Man Arrested on Dazzling Array of Charges, Including Human Trafficking, Following Table Bluff Road Grow Op Raid
Kind of a throwback interstate marijuana-themed case, with a licensed operation allegedly involved in all kinds of shady underground deals. A veritable arsenal of weapons were found at the site.
Among the items confiscated by the Drug Task Force during a raid: 13 watches, “various jewelry items” and a pound of hydrocodone pills. First time I can remember pills measured by weight.
23. Northtown Arcata Will Be Swarming With Movie Folk Tomorrow, As Bigtime Production ‘BC Project’ Films in the Neighborhood
Here we go! One of four or five big running stories this year was eminent director Paul Thomas Anderson coming to town, and bringing Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn with him, to film what was then codenamed “The BC Project,” and later officially titled The Battle of Baktan Cross. (Though it’s unclear if that name will stick.)
This is only the first of several high-ranking stories about the production, and we’ll have more to say on the topic later. But Northtown was quite a scene that day, and the movie people were very generous with the townfolk who wanted to stand around and gawk. Check out Stephanie McGeary’s wonderful report from the front lines, if you missed that.
22. (PHOTOS/VIDEO) Police Descend Upon Cal Poly Humboldt Activists in the Early Morning Hours; Several Dozen Arrested; University Administration Issues Statement
Little ol’ Cal Poly Humboldt played an outsized role in the 2024 nationwide uprising against the war in Gaza, garnering international attention and lots of traditional media coverage for the week-long occupation of Siemens Hall.
This post was the culmination of that occupation, as a team of police from around Northern California were brought to Humboldt by Sheriff William Honsal and Cal Poly Humboldt police to break up the occupation and clear the campus in the middle of the night.
Dozens were arrested in the crackdown; none were charged. Perhaps most importantly, no one was injured. You can have different opinions about whether it was wise or warranted to end the the protest in this way, but it was, thankfully, a strangely peaceful denouement to several days of high tension and uncertainty.
21. Humboldt Ranchers and Farmers Left Scrambling After Closure of Redwood Meat Co., the Region’s Only USDA-Certified Slaughterhouse and Processing Facility
The closure of Redwood Meat, off Myrtle, was more than just a blow to its employees — it left the area’s entire still-not-insignificant cattle industry scrambling for ways to get its product to market. Ryan Burns talked to lots of industry people to get a sense of what the loss of this critical piece of infrastructure would mean to the county.
This was the first part of the story. In the months that followed, Burns covered the weird family drama that left Redwood Meats’ assets in the hands of rancher Ray Christie.
20. Two and a Half Pounds of Meth En Route from Modesto to Eureka Intercepted by Drug Task Force
That’s a lot of meth. Right? We’re not exactly certain how much meth this amounts to, in terms of doses of meth.
The suspect in the case has been arrested for meth many times previously.
19. (UPDATING) Police Arrive at Cal Poly Humboldt En Masse, Warn Protesters to Deassemble
This was the updating post from night before the crackdown, when it became clear that something was going to happen.
18. (UPDATING) WEATHER ALERT: Flood Warning Issued for Humboldt Bay Area, Heavy Rain Expected to Continue Through the Afternoon
This was a nice Saturday photo gallery of a hellacious rain day last January.
17. There’s a Ticking Time Bomb in the Heart of Orick, and It’s Not Clear Whether Anybody Can Do Anything About It
Very gratifying that so many of you read this story about what might seem like an obscure, complex issue in a far-flung corner of the county.
Our Izzy Vanderheiden spent months, off and on, researching and writing about the levee system that protects the town of Orick from flooding, and about the truly strange bureaucratic systems that conspire to prevent anyone from fixing them. (Or: Should they be fixed at all?)
16. BREAKING: Sun Valley Floral Farms Issues Layoff Notices to Entire Workforce in Arcata and Oxnard
Probably the biggest business story of the year, maybe apart from Cal Poly Humboldt’s enrollment remaining static. Sun Valley had long been one of the county’s economic powerhouses, with a workforce of hundreds and exporting goods all around the globe.
It was never without at least some controversy — pesticides, employment practices, an ill-fated pivot to weed — but its abrupt bankruptcy and dismantling hit lots of people hard.
15. Final Election Night Report! With Perhaps Half the Vote Counted, the Status Quo Looks Like a Lock in Eureka
Most of the election year was a snooze, on the local level. In the spring, all the incumbent candidates won easily. Same with the city elections in the fall, it turned out. Though there was one significant challenger in Arcata, in the person of Genevieve Serna, the three incumbent candidates held on to their seats with a decent margin. In Eureka, the long-awaited advent of ranked-choice voting was delayed yet again, as only two candidates signed up for each seat on the ballot.
The great glaring exception, of course, was Measure F, the Arkley-sponsored initiative to scuttle the City of Eureka’s development plans, which had passed years before. It was the culmination of Arkley’s multi-pronged legal and electoral effort to stop the conversion of city-owned parking lots into housing. He put at least $1.4 million into it, shattering records. And come the day, it fell flat on its face, losing 70-30 at the polls.
At the same time, the incumbent City Council candidates — Kati Moulton and Scott Bauer — won their reelection campaigns easily. It was a strong mark of confidence from the citizenry.
14. (VIDEO) Everyone in Humboldt County is Required to Watch This Music Video Now
Brat Summer turned into Brett Autumn!
Local singer-songwriter Brett McFarland made a big play for outlaw country stardom in the last quarter of the year, dropping several highly produced and expensive-looking music videos celebrating local people and places and culture.
Everyone loved ’em!
13. (UPDATE: SUSPECT SHOT) SWAT Team Deployed to 14th and Union in Eureka After Report of Stabbing; Barricaded Suspect With Hostages; Streets Closed in the Area
A ghastly case in which the suspect and subject of the standoff turned out to have slashed two children’s necks with a knife.
12. I Street Closed in Downtown Eureka Following Huge, Multivehicle Crash; Pedestrian Struck
Another almost unimaginable scene in downtown Eureka. The pedestrian — 66-year-old Eureka man David Sprague — was killed. A 30-year-old Eureka woman, Maria Cuevas, was arrested on DUI and vehicular manslaughter charges. Police said that Cuevas admitted to using nitrous oxide prior to the crash.
11. (PHOTOS/VIDEO) Protesters Open Cal Poly Humboldt’s Siemens Hall After Day of Tension Waiting For a Raid That Has Yet to Come
Four days after the occupation began and three days before the crackdown, protesters occupying Siemens Hall opened the doors to the media and others and took them on a tour of the building they were occupying, which included then-President Tom Jackson’s offices and those of other campus administrators. There was a lot of graffiti, but little outright wreckage.
10. (UPDATING) Humboldt Responds to Big Offshore Earthquake
A kiiiiiinda big one?
“Weakest 7.0 ever!” was the standard review of this year’s annual December earthquake. The quake rolled lazily onto shore at midmorning and got everyone swaying slowly back and forth for a good long while. No major damage reported.
The big takeaways were from the automatically generated tsunami warning that hit our phones a few moments after the shock waves petered out. The evacuation of tsunami-prone areas, everyone agrees, was something of a disaster, tying up traffic in places in places it should not be tied up in the event of an actual emergency. Remember: The key, after a big quake, is to get to high ground immediately, and high ground is probably closer than you think. As in: Walking distance, rather than driving distance.
Here’s a map of places at risk in the event of a major tsunami. Review it. Be prepared.
9. (VIDEO) BOOM! Copco 1 Dam Blast Sends Middle Klamath River Flowing Freely For the First Time in a Century
There were several other milestones left, this year — the removal of the dams’ remnants, salmon making it upriver for the first time in a century — but what more cathartic way to celebrate the decades-long fight to undam the Klamath than with a big explosion?
8. (UPDATING) Cal Poly Humboldt Issues Hard Closure of Campus; Law Enforcement Converges
Why did university administration react to the protest the way that it did? Was it necessary, several days into the occupation, to completely shutter the campus? And did they really have to cancel on-campus commencement ceremonies several days later, after the occupation had been cleared? Were they acting out of spite, rather than choosing the most rational path forward?
These were valid questions at the time, and they were asked by students and faculty associations, which, as shown in this post, were already calling for President Tom Jackson’s resignation. (They soon got their wish.) They became even more valid in the months that followed, when Thad Greenson at the North Coast Journal reviewed body camera footage that showed the president’s chief of staff peeved off at protesters who chose, in his words, to do things “the hard way.”
7. Film Set to Shoot in Eureka is From Renowned Director Paul Thomas Anderson, With Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Regina Hall, According to Industry Reports
This was the big-scoop post, all the way back in January. There had been rumblings about a big movie production coming to town even back before the pandemic. (Or maybe during it? It’s all a fog.) Those rumblings had grown in the months previous to the this post. No one in the local film world would spill the beans, no matter how hard we tried!
Then film industry newsletter editor Jordan Raup figured out from a casting call that a Paul Thomas Anderson movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio would be filming in Humboldt in the coming months, and everything became clear.
Was Anderson — a noted Thomas Pynchon nut — filming Vineland up here? That novel takes place in a fictional Northern California county strongly resembling Humboldt, and Anderson was said to be working on a script. People went back and forth on this, but photos from filming — see below! — seem to confirm that it is indeed some interpreted version of that book, updated to the current era.
6. Remains of Humboldt Man Who Went Missing 37 Years Ago Identified with DNA Testing, Says HCSO
A local boy — Milton Pellegrini Jr. — was lost at sea in 1987, after the boat he was working on, Midnight Sun, capsized near the entrance to Humboldt Bay.
Three years later, a human jawbone was found at Houda Point.
And just this year, DNA testing — which compared DNA found in the mandible with DNA donated by his brother — confirmed that the jawbone was Milt’s.
5. TODAY: Mike McGuire is the Governor of the State of California
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The term “clickbait,” when used as a pejorative, means that the headline promises something that the story does not deliver. If the story does deliver, it’s just a good headline.
On July 3, Mike McGuire was the acting governor of the state of California. This you cannot deny. He even signed legislation and such.
4. (UPDATING) Major Pro-Palestine Protests at Cal Poly Humboldt Provoke Massive Police Response; Protesters Occupy Siemens Hall; Reports of Violent Force Between Activists and Law Enforcement
Right from the jump, the pro-Palestine protest at Cal Poly Humboldt was chaotic, and the management of it was no less so.
Backup police were called to campus at around 6:30 p.m., after protesters had decided to station themselves inside the university’s main administrative building. Someone made the decision to take Siemens Hall back by force; the students inside easily repelled their effort to push their way in. In a soon-to-be-iconic moment, one of the protesters inside bonked armored police with an empty five-gallon water jug as they tried to get past the barricaded doors. The administration lost the PR battle in the first few moments.
The following days saw a ratcheting of tension. People were ripping the lids off dumpsters and fashioning barricade shields out of them. There was an eerie premonition that some sort of Sixties-style violence would break out, at some point or another. Thankfully — see above — that never came to pass.
3. McKinleyville-Area Hunter Earns World Record With Largest Roosevelt Elk Antlers Ever Recorded
Those are some big antlers!
Everyone loves a world record.
2. (UPDATING) ‘Bomb Cyclone’ Prompts Flood Watch for North Coast Communities; High Wind Advisory in Effect
Pretty fun storm last month! The rivers swelled and the power went out in places, and there was a brief period in which parts of Loleta were under evacuation warnings. No big whoop in the grand scheme of things, as many truly badass Facebook commenters always like to remind us, but it was fun to follow it.
It also taught us all about the Fujiwhara Effect.
1. (WATCH) First Look at Leonardo DiCaprio In Character for New Paul Thomas Anderson Film Currently Filming in Humboldt
The Murphy’s Market Cutten branch went viral!
All the world’s film geeks came to LoCO to see Leonardo DiCaprio in character as, presumably, Zoyd Wheeler, or else some Zoyd Wheeler-inspired character.
Other photos from the Cutten and Trinidad sets didn’t have that same star power.
The Battle of Baktan Cross, or whatever it ends up being called, is currently scheduled to open on Aug. 8. There will be an IMAX version.
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