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President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s plan to dramatically downsize the federal government has placed a bullseye on an Arcata field office that houses roughly two dozen 85 full-time employees of agencies including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries and Redwood National Park.

Following the first wave in a massive purge of federal employees carried out by the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the administration now plans to close more than 2 million square feet of office space being used by the Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies.

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) lease-termination list includes 1655 Heindon Rd. in Arcata, a 25,500-square-foot office building off Giuntoli Lane, near Toni’s 24-Hour Restaurant. According to a former federal employee who spoke on condition of anonymity, the office’s lease is scheduled to be terminated at the end of September.

Congressman Jared Huffman, who represents the North Coast and serves as ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, slammed the Trump administration’s plans in a press release issued Friday:

The federal government exists to serve the people—not abandon them. But Trump and Musk are taking a wrecking ball to our country—slashing staff, cutting vital funding, and creating widespread chaos and economic devastation. Shuttering these physical locations goes hand in glove with DOGE’s “destroy the government” approach, and it will make their illegal cuts even more challenging to reverse. The economic fallout will ripple across America, hitting small towns and cities where federal offices are many communities’ only lifelines.

The Arcata office building is owned by Larry and Lisa DeBeni. Reached by phone this morning, Larry DeBeni was reluctant to talk about the particulars before making some phone calls to get more information about the plans, but he confirmed that he and his wife have been informed about the office closure plans, which they find disappointing.

“It makes us sick to our stomach to think about these people losing their jobs or being displaced from the community,” DeBeni said. 

In memos and press releases, Trump has boasted of having a voter mandate for his sweeping federal reforms, but DeBeni said this is not what most people signed up for.

“This is extremely disheartening — absolutely devastating for the country, in my opinion,” he said. Referring to the local terminations specifically, DeBeni said, “It’s sickening. It’s just cruel — especially when it comes from the richest men in the world. … We’re sick about it.”

The Outpost has spoken with several off-the-record sources who said local employees of the National Weather Service and NOAA Fisheries were terminated late last week. Both agencies responded via public affairs officers who emailed identical statements: “Per long-standing practice, we are not discussing internal personnel and management matters.”

According to Huffman’s office, the GSA plans to close 164 offices across multiple states. The full list, which you can download by clicking here, includes 25 offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 34 U.S. Geological Survey locations and 33 National Park Service facilities.

Huffman’s comments on the lease-cancelation plan continued:

The impact on Bureau of Indian Affairs offices will be especially devastating. These offices are already underfunded, understaffed, and stretched beyond capacity, struggling to meet the needs of Tribal communities who face systemic barriers to federal resources. Closing these offices will further erode services like public safety, economic development, education, and housing assistance—services that Tribal Nations rely on for their well-being and self-determination.

The National Park Service will lose space for boots on the ground at national monuments and parks they manage, kneecapping their ability to protect public safety and provide recreational access.

This is nothing short of a direct attack on working people and the communities they serve. In many places around the country, the federal government keeps local businesses afloat and ensures families have stable jobs. This decision defies all logic.

While the Trump administration demands a return-to-office, GSA is shutting those offices down—eliminating jobs, destabilizing local economies, and gutting essential services. The most vulnerable communities will bear the brunt of this reckless decision, and if they think we’ll stand by and watch it happen, they’re dead wrong.

The Trump administration issued a memo last Wednesday instructing agency heads to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.” Federal agencies must develop reorganization plans by March 13.

[CORRECTION: This post initially understated the number of federal employees working at 1655 Heindon Rd. The Outpost regrets the error.]

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PREVIOULSY

• ‘I Loved My Job So Much’: Fired Federal Employees in Humboldt County Say Their Unjust Terminations Will Impact the Public
• Local Federal Employees Were Fired Over the Weekend. Agency Spokespeople Can’t or Won’t Say How Many.

UPDATE, 5:53 p.m.:

Here’s the press release from the Fortuna Police Department:

On March 3, 2025, at approximately 1:01 PM, the Fortuna Police Department attempted a traffic stop on a green motorcycle in the 300 block of 9th Street in Fortuna. The rider failed to comply and fled, prompting a brief vehicle pursuit.

The chase ended when the pursuing police vehicle collided with private property, including a utility pole in the 800 block of O Street. Fortunately, the officer was uninjured, but the motorcycle operator continued to flee and remains at large.

Following protocol, the California Highway Patrol assisted with the collision investigation. We acknowledge that the crash caused some utility disruptions and appreciate the community’s patience as repairs are made.

The suspect was last seen riding a green off road style motorcycle westbound on O Street. If you witnessed the incident or have any information about the motorcycle or its rider, please contact the Fortuna Police Department at (707) 725-7550.

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Original post:

Live power outage map

About 400 Fortuna PG&E customers are without power this afternoon, after a Fortuna Police vehicle crashed into a historic property near the corner of 9th and O streets.

According to radio traffic at the time, at just before 1:30 p.m. a Fortuna police officer attempted a stop on a motorcyclist who ran a stop sign in the neighborhood. The motorcyclist fled from the officer’s attempts to pull him over.

Moments later, the call came in that the officer had crashed.

Photos posted to the “Fortuna Happenings” Facebook group by an account belonging to the “Gushaw-Mudgett House” — a historic home near Ninth and O streets — showed a police vehicle slammed head-first into a power pole near the building, apparently damaging an outbuilding.

“Our carport is probably toast,” said the Gushaw-Mudgett account.

Power outage updates at this link.

PREVIOUSLY:

• [UPDATED: Torn Down] New Pro-Israel Billboard Proves Controversial
• Another Pro-Zionism Billboard Erected Along Highway 101 in the Same Place as the Old One

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Press release from the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission:

In recent weeks two billboards have appeared just south of Arcata, facing the southbound lanes of 101. These billboards have appeared to support a Zionistic approach to the world and have upset a number of residents in the area, It is not the goal of the Human Rights Commission to enter into a debate on the merits of the billboards, but to explain our purpose and goals. We hope to build harmony and the ability to vigorously debate issues without hate or malice.

The Commission is obliged to engage with the County of Humboldt and other governmental entities on behalf of underserved groups and individuals who may be affected by the policies of local government. We are not in the business of monitoring the speech rights of the client (who paid for the signs) or the rights of property owners (the sign company). We have received considerable feedback regarding both, but can see little appropriate action we can or should take.

The Commission encourages debate on the issues of the day. We encourage neighbors to respect the rights and voices of anyone with an opinion. We do not support disrespectful words or actions toward anyone, no matter how tempting that might be. We encourage the community to engage with the Commission if there is a concrete way for us to contribute to discourse in the community and to protect the rights of all our residents.

One year into California’s landmark effort to regulate conditions for more than a half-million fast food workers, the state council appointed to oversee the industry has barely settled on how to conduct meetings.

The nine-member fast food council, composed of business owners, workers and union representatives, recently decided to consider a cost-of-living adjustment to the $20 fast food minimum wage that went into effect last April. At its yet-unscheduled next meeting, it plans to discuss raising that requirement by 3.5% or last year’s rate of inflation, whichever is lower.

But it won’t do much more than that. After two marathon meetings in January and February in which a smaller group of the council members listened to hours of comments from workers and their allies, and restaurant owners and their allies, the council chair put the raise on the next agenda for discussion only — not a vote.

That’s the closest the council has gotten to a policy decision since it began meeting last March.

Food council Chair Nick Hardeman, a former state Senate staffer Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed to be the sole “public” member of the council affiliated with neither business nor labor, said the pace so far is to be expected. He likened the work to starting a new department from scratch, and said he and the council have spent the past year hiring three staff members, and hopes soon to establish rules on how to conduct future votes.

“Putting together the groundwork so that we would be able to move toward substantive conversations on policy took a lot of time,” Hardeman said. “It is hard to come to decisions. And there’s a lot of people who are coming from two completely different sets of life experiences when we’re talking about issues, and you see that play out in every single meeting.”

In 2021, the Service Employees International Union proposed a European-style state council by which fast food workers and business owners would bargain directly with each other over wages and working conditions on behalf of the entire industry. After the state’s Democratic-dominated Legislature and Newsom approved the law, fast food corporations spent millions to try to overturn it.

The resulting compromise Newsom signed in 2023 mandated a $20 minimum wage for workers at fast food restaurants belonging to a chain with 60 or more locations nationwide, and a statewide council — split evenly between business and labor, with one neutral chairperson — that could approve further raises, but little else.

Council members on both sides have said they want to find compromises to improve the industry, but meetings — about half a dozen since last March — have gone much the same way: discussion mostly focused on what the council should discuss.

A flood of workers across the state has attended those meetings or called in to raise concerns about wage theft, employers cutting hours and the cost of living.

Twenty dollars an hour, while more than 20% higher than the state’s regular minimum wage, is still far from what the average single Californian without children needs to make ends meet, according to a calculator devised by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Workers and their advocates on the council have sought a hearing for workers to more comprehensively air allegations of workplace abuses.

An accompanying flood of franchise owners have implored the council to vote down future increases, warning of restaurant closures and detailing ways they’ve cut hours or staff to absorb the costs of the minimum wage increase. Some owners have emphasized their own humble backgrounds, a nod to the path the franchised restaurant industry provides to business ownership for people of color.

Conflicting information

Since the wage increase last April, researchers have issued competing reports about its effects.

A recent business-commissioned report from the firm Berkeley Research Group pointed out there were 10,000 fewer jobs in California fast food between June 2023 and June 2024 — the latest month available for that dataset. It also concluded the law increased menu prices by 14.5%.

But in another study touted by labor, UC Berkeley researchers said Berkeley Research Group failed to account for changes in other restaurant sectors, or control for the way seasonal swings in the industry play out differently in California than in the rest of the country. The UC Berkeley report found the wage boost had little effect on fast food jobs and only 1.5% increases in menu prices.

More up-to-date federal data shows jobs growth in California’s limited-service restaurants industry has been mostly flat for about a year and a half.

Arindrajit Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an expert in minimum wages, said it’s still too soon to definitively measure the effects of the wage increase, and cautioned against comparing California jobs without also comparing it to a similar, slight nationwide slowdown in restaurant jobs. He noted in an email that “it is safe to say that a substantial portion (majority, but not all) of the labor cost increase has been passed through to prices.”

None of the studies capture whether workers’ hours have remained the same.

A key ingredient missing from the fast food discussions: corporate representatives for McDonald’s, Burger King and the other fast food titans.

Fast food workers chant at a press conference where Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation boosting wages to $20 an hour at SEIU Local 721 in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters

When lawmakers first considered a fast food council, McDonald’s and other franchisor companies poured millions of dollars into the campaign to beat back a more expansive proposal.

Now, they’ve been largely absent from council meetings. Instead, it’s their franchise owners — who pay royalties and branding fees to operate the restaurants independently and are responsible for wages and employment — who speak up at the council meetings to plead against further wage increases.

McDonald’s, Burger King, Yum! Brands and other franchised fast food chains did not respond to CalMatters questions

Wages and hours

Restaurant owners and their advocates on the council have urged their colleagues to focus elsewhere. Krispy Kreme franchise owner and council member Rich Reinis suggested last week the council should discuss how to support workers affected by the Los Angeles wildfires or employees afraid to show up to work amid increased immigration enforcement.

“We can talk about a lot of reasons to postpone the conversation,” said council member Maria Maldonado, director of the California Fast Food Workers Union. “But workers are still waiting for us to talk about the (cost-of-living adjustment) and to make this council useful.”

The council had scheduled a hearing with state labor agency leaders in January to discuss its role in fielding complaints from fast food workers, but postponed it due to the LA fires and has yet to reschedule it.

Rich Tieu, who owns two McDonald’s restaurants in Santa Clara County, welcomed the council’s slower pace. He had owned his McDonald’s for about a year when the $20 wage increase went into effect last April, he said, and he’s gone from about 80 employees to fewer than 70 by not filling vacancies when employees leave.

Council members “haven’t really fully organized to where they actually have items on the agenda,” he said. “They kept talking about increasing labor (costs) and that’s all they’ve been talking about. I feel like they should actually look at other factors.”

Marina Orozco, a college student and Chipotle worker in Sacramento, has been hoping the council will approve a raise to help her afford rent and a recent tuition increase. She said last year she worked about 30 hours a week at other fast food restaurants, and now can only get about 20. And she wants a hearing on working conditions.

“Even though this is a new process and it might take some time,” she said, “it feels really special to finally sit down with our bosses and share our feelings and ideas.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Big Oil faces mounting lawsuits as extreme weather worsens, with California leading efforts to make fossil fuel giants pay billions of dollars for the climate damage they have long denied.

Across the country, states, cities, tribes and environmental groups have filed dozens of lawsuits against oil companies alleging that they misled the public about the dangers of their products. These cases share a core argument: Oil companies knew fossil fuels were driving climate change and lied about it.

California and other plaintiffs are recycling a legal strategy deployed during the 1990s, when states alleged that tobacco companies knew cigarettes cause cancer. Four large companies settled the cases by paying billions to fund states’ anti-smoking campaigns and other efforts. The manufacturers also must make annual payments to the states as long as they sell cigarettes in the United States.

The settlement set a powerful precedent for using litigation to hold industries accountable for public harm caused by deceptive practices.

“All of these (climate) cases are fundamentally deception cases,” said Benjamin Franta, a professor of climate law at University of Oxford and leader of its Climate Litigation Lab.

For decades, climate cases leaned on environmental laws and regulations rather than corporate accountability, Franta said. But with deception cases, “you can go directly after the private companies,” he said, and “the damages could be enormous.”

But while tobacco lawsuits proved corporations can be held accountable, legal experts say taking on Big Oil presents bigger hurdles.

Michael Gerrard, an environmental law expert at Columbia Law School, said the oil industry, unlike the tobacco industry, is actively supported by government policies, from subsidies to infrastructure investments, that promote oil consumption.

“There are a lot of lawsuits pending, but so far, not a single court in the world has held fossil fuel companies financially responsible for greenhouse gas emissions,” Gerrard said. “It’s highly uncertain whether these cases will ultimately succeed.”

Oil companies say holding them accountable for climate change makes them responsible for an entire economy that depends on their products — a defense that has found traction in some state courts.

“It’s not the oil and gas companies that are actually the direct polluters,” Gerrard said. Liability may have to be assigned along a vast supply chain, from refiners to power plants — even consumers who buy the gasoline, plastics and other products produced from fossil fuels, he said.

“There are a lot of lawsuits pending, but so far, not a single court in the world has held fossil fuel companies financially responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. It’s highly uncertain whether these cases will ultimately succeed.”
— Michael Gerrard, Columbia Law School

Also, while the connection between climate change and fossil fuels has been clearly documented by scientists, the evidence is less definitive linking fossil fuels to specific extreme weather events such as droughts or wildfires. And climate-warming greenhouse gases are global in scope and emitted by a variety of fossil fuels and other sources, not just gasoline and other products manufactured by the oil industry.

In one closely watched climate case in Hawaii, 20 states, including Texas, Wyoming and Alaska, threw their weight behind the oil industry, which asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. The court in January denied that request.

Still, climate liability efforts are gaining traction in some areas, especially in California, following January’s devastating wildfires in Los Angeles.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, introduced a bill in January that would give homeowners and insurance companies new rights to sue oil companies for climate disasters. Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat from Van Nuys, reintroduced a version of a bill that failed last year, requiring companies to pay for the damage greenhouse gas emissions have caused in California since 1990.

A test case in Honolulu

Climate plaintiffs recently notched a win in January when the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by the oil industry to intervene in the Hawaii lawsuit, allowing cases in state courts to move forward for now. The city and county of Honolulu filed suit in 2020 seeking unspecified damages from Sunoco LP, Exxon Mobil and other oil companies.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the oil industry, supported by 20 states, maintained that federal law precludes states’ rights to seek damages from greenhouse gases, which are emitted worldwide. The states, led by Alabama, said Honolulu is violating their rights by “asserting the power to enact disastrous global energy policy via state tort law. Among their demands is that major energy companies stop ‘promoting the sale and use’ of their fuel products.”

The Biden administration argued that the Supreme Court should let the Hawaii proceedings play out in state court.

“The oil companies would love to have this court decide right now that all of these cases should be thrown out. Well, they didn’t get that,” said Pat Parenteau, a law professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School who specializes in climate policy. “So now it’s a case-by-case battle until they can get one of these cases back to the Supreme Court — that’s what their end game is.”

After surviving multiple dismissal attempts, Honolulu’s lawsuit is the furthest along of any state climate lawsuits. The case is entering full discovery, meaning oil companies could soon need to turn over documents and sit for depositions that could be illuminating about their role in climate change, said Corey Riday-White, a managing attorney at the Center for Climate Integrity, which supports efforts to challenge oil companies in court and sponsored Wiener’s legislation.

If a jury delivers a big verdict in the Honolulu case, the pressure to settle will mount, experts say. But the case would almost certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where many justices are seen as favorable to corporate interests. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is likely to support oil companies.

“Now it’s a case-by-case battle until they can get one of these cases back to the Supreme Court — that’s what (industry’s) end game is.”
— Pat Parenteau, Vermont Law and Graduate School

One major hurdle for climate suit plaintiffs is the industry’s push to move cases to federal courts, where judges have been more inclined than state courts to dismiss them, legal experts said. State courts also have dismissed some recent cases.

California has played a major role in the litigation. In 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute, alleging that they misled the public about climate change. The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages, penalties and the establishment of an abatement fund to cover future costs.

Franta noted that California’s case could be a game changer.

“California’s case is among the most important,” said Franta of the Climate Litigation Lab. “It’s an enormous jurisdiction, and bringing a very muscular claim against many companies, and under different causes of action. And of course we know there’s a lot of climate-related damages — economic damages and property damages — in California.”

If successful, these cases could set a precedent similar to the tobacco cases, ultimately holding fossil fuel companies accountable.

The American Petroleum Institute did not respond to a request by CalMatters for comment, but in 2023 called California’s lawsuit “meritless” and “politicized,” adding that climate policy should be legislated in Congress and not decided in the courts.

“California’s case is among the most important. It’s an enormous jurisdiction…and we know there’s a lot of climate-related damages — economic damages and property damages — in California.”
— Benjamin Franta, Oxford University’s Climate Litigation Lab

Last year, a judge approved a request by Bonta to coordinate with multiple other California jurisdictions that had sued the oil industry on similar grounds.

Evidence of industry deception

Plaintiffs argue that oil companies misled the public about climate change, and there’s strong evidence they did. But proving those deceptions influenced consumer behavior — or that a better-informed public would have acted differently — is far from straightforward.

“Would they have stopped filling their tanks if a sign at the gas pump said, ‘This fuel contributes to climate change?’” Gerrard asked.

Many experts mark the wave of climate litigation as beginning in 2017, when San Francisco, Oakland and other California municipalities sued major oil companies for deceptive practices, marking a shift from earlier, largely unsuccessful federal claims.

For years, plaintiffs filing climate cases relied on environmental laws and regulations . But now they are focusing on allegations of deception.

Internal documents reveal that by the 1960s, oil companies began predicting fossil fuels could drive catastrophic climate change. Yet, in later decades, as scientists increasingly came to the consensus that burning fossil fuels caused climate change, oil companies ran ads, filed reports and lobbied lawmakers to spread the opposite message — that climate change wasn’t real or wasn’t a big deal.

In the 1970s, Exxon had internal climate research predicting today’s global warming with stunning accuracy. By the early 1980s, the industry knew what was happening, how severe it would be and that fossil fuels were the cause. A pivotal moment came in 2015 when investigative journalists exposed what the industry knew.

Tobacco industry suits focusing on deception also paved the way for lawsuits against other large industries, including opioid manufacturers, big banks after the housing crash and chemical companies for polluting water with “forever chemicals.”

Heat waves and wildfires

In the meantime, the science that links climate change to specific effects has evolved rapidly, now churning out real-time assessments of how much climate change has worsened a given disaster.

The science has changed from one of uncertainty to precise statements like a specific hurricane’s “rainfall was made 40% worse by climate change,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president for Science at Climate Central, which works on quantifying how much climate change is worsening extreme weather.

Because of the evolving science, some cases are also getting more specific. In Oregon’s Multnomah County, a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp. and other oil and gas companies zeroes in on the Pacific Northwest’s devastating 2021 heat wave, attempting to link its deadly impact to climate change and seeking $1.55 billion in damages and a $50 billion abatement fund.

Connecting wildfires to fossil fuel companies is particularly difficult, since fires are often ignited by identifiable parties, such as utilities or arsonists, who can be held directly liable.

Former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has spent years trying to get the insurance industry to acknowledge the financial risks of climate change. But while insurers are quick to pull out of high-risk areas and raise rates, they’ve been far less willing to hold oil companies accountable for the disasters their emissions are fueling.

The insurance industry is facing an existential crisis, Jones said. Wildfires, hurricanes and even newly emerging threats like severe convective storms are making it harder to insure homes and businesses.

Insurance companies are still heavily invested in the industry driving it. According to Jones, U.S. insurers have over half a trillion dollars tied up in fossil fuels.

If oil companies are held financially responsible for disasters, Gerrard of Columbia Law School warned that equity firms or foreign companies with even less concern for climate issues could swoop in.

“If the companies go bankrupt, they’ll be bought by firms that will be happy to drill,” Gerrard said.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

The Redwood Coast Energy Authority has a sometimes conflicting mission: purchase as much renewable energy as possible, but ideally that power is local, and also it needs to be cheap enough to compete with PG&E. And layer onto that state mandates and competition with other power purchasers across the state.

Richard Engel of the Redwood Coast Energy Authority joins the show to talk about the difficulties of trying to meet these goals and a new long-term power agreement with a large solar project in Kern County.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• HUMBOLDT HISTORY: First-Hand Accounts of the Tuluwat Massacre, Which Happened 165 Years Ago This Week

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A complex pattern of displacement and genocide ravaged indigenous communities across the American West through the 1860s. Weaving together Native American voices, government reports, and settler perspectives, a cohesive narrative of this dark chapter in Humboldt’s history can be revealed.

In the days after the Wiyot Massacre, about three hundred Native Americans were congregated at Fort Humboldt.¹ In regions not targeted in the slaughter, such as Mad River (Baduwa’t), Wiyot people continued to inhabit their homes. Agent D. E. Buell came to Arcata in April 1860, where he advocated for the removal of the Wiyot to the Klamath Reservation. Buell invited Baduwa’t leaders to Arcata for a meeting and announced plans for their expulsion:

After urging countless objections against leaving their old homes, and fears for their welfare on the reservation, [the Wiyot] said that they thought they would go, but wanted a little time — two or three days — to make ready. To all this they were answered by the agent and citizens, that if they did not consent to remove, force would be used to compel them; that should any of them succeed in eluding the agent and… [the citizens] at this time, they would henceforth be treated as enemies; that before sunset every Lower-Mad River Indian must be in town ready to start the next morning for the Klamath; that some of the party present were to remain in town while the others would accompany white men to the different camps and rancherias to bring in the balance of the Indians, and that there was to be no more talk on the subject.²

Faced with an impossible choice, Baduwa’t communities collected what they could carry, setting their canoes and homes on fire as they left so that they would not be appropriated by the settlers.³At 4 p.m. that day, the Wiyot gathered in the center of Arcata for the forced removal to Klamath Reservation. Buell then fixed his sights on the Wiyot people who were located at Fort Humboldt. Commanding officer Gabriel J. Rains initially appeared to defend the rights of the Wiyot, but quickly caved to public opinion at the urging of eighty-four settlers.⁴ Nearly 450 people were removed from Humboldt County to the Klamath Reservation.

Jane Searson, a 20-year-old Wiyot survivor, recalled jarring details of the forced march:

I remember about 300 Indians coming back have clothes, they [were] driving the Indian like cattle… [swing] whip like drive catt[le] … [Their] legs were [bleeding] and cut [by] the [whip.] They passed dow[n] the road and I had a good look and seen how th[e]y [were] treate[d]. They were on their way to the Res. They [were] to take my child away if I did not go.⁵

Using physical violence, Lieutenant Hardcastle of Fort Humboldt pushed the victims along rugged backcountry trails at breakneck speeds. Roughly a third of the Wiyot — the sick, young, and elderly — were brought to the point of complete exhaustion.⁶ The number of deaths resulting from this march remains unknown. It should be recognized that not all Wiyot were taken to the reservation: in some cases, people remained in Humboldt as a result of settler marriages and indenture contracts, while others lived in the rural countryside with hopes of avoiding further persecution.⁷ Practically every path taken by Native Americans during this period risked violence or death.

For a brief time the expelled Wiyot lived near the mouth of the Klamath River near a place called Wau-Kell, the reservation headquarters.⁸ People were divided into small villages with eight to twelve acres of farmland. Through these farm communes the Bureau of Indian Affairs intended to disrupt hunter-gatherer methods and replace them with agrarian practices.⁹

Forcibly relocated away from their homes under false promises of “protection,” the Wiyot could not escape the terrible cycle of violence. The source of this abuse was the military personnel of Fort Ter-Waw, located across the river from Wau-Kell.¹⁰ One historian states that those who were detained at Klamath were “continually exposed to the brutal assault of drunken and lawless white men; [the women were] forced, and, if resented, the Indians [were] beaten and shot.”¹¹ Oral accounts affirm that a gallows was built between two redwood trees near the fort and used to hang Native Americans, possibly to execute those who resisted forced agricultural practices.

Inadequate harvests and widespread malnourishment made conditions even worse.¹² In contemporary accounts, the Tolowa have compared the Klamath Reservation to a concentration camp. Indigenous people seized the earliest opportunities to escape the abysmal state of affairs at Wau-Kell. In July 1860, the Humboldt Times stated that the Wiyot were returning to Humboldt Bay, and by the fall of that year “nearly all of the Indians removed to Klamath last spring [had] returned.”¹³ Hundreds of expelled people made the long march home with hopes of returning to the villages that their families had inhabited since time immemorial. Soon after their arrival, however, a renewed expulsion campaign was carried out upon Wiyot communities.

By October 1860, citizens began petitioning for a second removal of returning Native Americans.¹⁴ Settlers took the matter of deportation into their own hands. In Hydesville, a public meeting was held with the goals of “[making] arrangements in relation to the Indians of [Humboldt] county…”¹⁵ Attendees resolved that all Native Americans were to be rounded up and removed to the Klamath Reservation, except for those under the age of ten who were the servants of white households for at least a year, or if they were born outside the county. Vigilantes went door to door, visiting settler households and demanding that they “provide a way and means to send [Indians] to the Reservation.”¹⁶ Among the men involved in the plan were Sheriff Van Nest, George Huestis (nephew of the county judge), and suspected massacre culprit Hank Larrabee.¹⁷

By September 1861, several hundred Wiyot were forcibly congregated at Fort Humboldt through the posse’s efforts. In cooperation with Agent Buell and Colonel Lippitt (commanding officer of Fort Humboldt), Captain H. H. Buhne assumed the role of transferring the Wiyot back to the Klamath Reservation aboard his steamer, the Mary Ann. ¹⁸ Those aboard the Mary Ann arrived at an unfortunate time: an extreme winter storm battered the Northern Californian coast between December 1861 and February 1862.¹⁹ The Humboldt Times on January 25, 1862 wrote, “The [Klamath] Reservation has been inundated five several times since the first of last month, and at each overflow the Klamath rose higher by many feet than any Indian tradition gives account of.”²⁰ One individual observed the churning Klamath River swell 150 feet above its average height, while a Yurok elder suggested that it was the worst flood in living memory.²¹ Due to its low-lying situation, Wau-Kell was doomed by the rising floodwaters.

“[E]very panel of fencing, every Indian village, and every government building, except a barn” had been swept away by the destructive flood.²² To make matters worse, one of the few redeeming factors of the reservation — its fertile topsoil — was now covered in a deep layer of silt, preventing farming for many years to come.²³ The agency’s entire food reserve was destroyed, leaving two thousand Native American people on the verge of starvation in the middle of a winter storm.²⁴ An immediate evacuation was necessary. Superintendent Hanson wrote, “[Native Americans] will either perish for lack of food or return to their old [homes] … [where they will begin] depredations on the settlers’ [live]stock, which they must do from necessity or die. ”²⁵ By the time he made these remarks, hundreds of people were already returning to their ancestral lands throughout Humboldt County.

The Wiyot expulsion to the Klamath Reservation was a catastrophic failure of the federal government on both a moral and logistical scale. The 1861-62 Flood worsened an already awful situation, sparking a humanitarian crisis and mass exodus. As hundreds of starving, displaced people fled the reservation, they returned to Humboldt not as refugees in need of help, but instead as enemies who the settler community actively hunted and killed. This period marked the final phase of the so-called Humboldt Indian “Wars,” in which Native Americans were targets of an atrocious campaign of genocide. Yet these tales of persecution remain unspoken, nearly forgotten by time — perhaps this morbid chapter in our local history has been deliberately hidden by Humboldt’s founding pioneers, the very people who carried out this butchery.

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Ryan Bass is a historian of Yurok-Karuk descent at Cal Poly Humboldt. After receiving the Charles R. Barnum Award for his research on the 1964 Flood and its effects on indigenous communities in Humboldt-Del Norte, he has shifted his research focus to two particular topics: the Hoopa Valley Boarding School (1892-1932) and the California Genocide (1849-1873). Published works regarding these topics are expected to be released later this year.

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