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School closures are an incendiary issue in nearly every corner of California, as enrollment declines and expenses climb. The topic has sparked parent revolts, teacher strikes and school boards’ desperate attempts to keep districts financially afloat.

And then there’s Orick.

The picturesque town in northern Humboldt County has a historic school with five classrooms, a gym, a vegetable garden and an expansive play field. Its current enrollment: nine. Its expenses: $118,000 per student per year, more than five times the state average.

California has dozens of school districts with enrollments under 100 and higher-than-average expenses. Most of these districts are in remote areas miles from the next nearest school. But as urban districts grapple with the threat of school closures and the inevitable backlash from families and staff, rural schools face an even more heart-wrenching scenario: close the school and decimate the town.

“Close the school? It comes up all the time,” said Orick Elementary School District Superintendent Justin Wallace. “But I’d say it’s an equity issue. We have families who can’t afford a lot, and this school provides the most consistent setting for our kids. They’re safe, they’re well fed, they’re learning.”

Most of these rural towns once had booming local economies. Logging, ranching, farming, mining and other industries employed generations of families. In the 1960s Orick had 3,000 people and nearly 300 students in its school. There were seven lumber mills, grocery stores, restaurants, churches, even a movie theater.

But as California’s economy changed and jobs in these towns vanished, many communities struggled to find a new purpose. In Orick, the lumber mills gradually closed, the National Park Service claimed much of the surrounding land and residents moved elsewhere. Now, Orick has about 300 people and an average household income that’s just under $39,000 a year — a third of the state average. According to Orick School’s accountability plan, Orick residents “experience high rates of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, domestic violence, substance abuse, and run-ins with the criminal justice system due to limited resources and high community rates of intergenerational trauma.”

‘Terrified’ of closure

In towns like Orick, the school serves as a savior, of sorts. It’s a community hub, one of the few sources of decent-paying jobs and a symbol of hope for the future. It’s a central part of the town’s identity. The school in Orick operates as a food pantry for the community, gives away clothes to families in need, hosts Narcotics Anonymous meetings and runs a toddler playgroup. The district bought a washer and dryer so residents have a place to do laundry.

Kimberly Frick is the fifth generation in her family to attend Orick School. She remembers when the classrooms were full, students won trophies and the town was like a close-knit family. Now she’s president of the school board and fights to keep the school open. Saving the school, she said, is tantamount to saving the town.

She and Wallace scour the area to find new students for the school. Every time a new family moves to town, they visit and try to persuade them to enroll their children. Other community members chip in, as well, by fixing up homes, keeping the town clean and participating in the volunteer fire department, water district and other local services.

“I feel terrified about the possibility of the school closing. I’d hate to see it happen on my watch,” Frick said. “The facility is clean, safe, well maintained. We provide a high-quality, individualized education for each child.”

Orick School provides a resource room where community members can access a food pantry, clothing and a washer and dryer. Orick on April 2, 2026. Photos by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

Justin Wallace, superintendent and principal of Orick School, padlocks the school garden to keep it safe from elk that frequently wander onto the school grounds, in Orick on April 2, 2026. Wallace built the garden and enclosure with Kimberly Frick, the president of the Orick School Board of Directors. This year, the students are growing radishes, carrots, onions, turnips and leafy greens, which are utilized in school lunches. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

Orick, whose name originates from the language of the nearby Yurok tribe, sits in a lush valley along Redwood Creek, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Ranges. A herd of about 60 elk roam through the town and are frequent visitors to the school play field. There’s a pizza truck, a small convenience store and a newly refurbished hotel. A rodeo draws crowds every July.

But much of the town is abandoned or dilapidated. A trailer park near the school is strewn with trash and broken furniture. Many of the buildings are boarded up. There’s no gas station. The post office is only open a few hours a day.

Budget breakdown

California funds its schools based on how many students show up every day. But small districts get most of their money in grants, in order to protect them from wild fluctuations in revenue. Last year Orick received $774,000 from the state and federal governments. The school gets extra money because so many of its students have high needs: all are low-income and more than half receive special education services. Some years, numerous students are homeless or in foster care.

Most of the budget goes toward salaries. The school has four full-time staff: two teachers, an administrative assistant and Wallace’s position, which includes serving as superintendent, principal, literacy coach and special education director. A janitor, cook, counselor, special education teacher and after-school teacher all work part time. Maintaining the school buildings is expensive: heating bills can cost $1,100 a month. So is transportation, because everything is far away. When the students take swim lessons, for example, a driver transports them 30 miles south to McKinleyville. Whatever funds are left over go toward student supplies and enrichment activities like field trips.

Students work on projects inside a classroom at Orick School in Orick on April 2, 2026. Justin Wallace, the school’s superintendent and principal, and Matt Schroeder, an after-school teacher, are filling in for the school’s teacher, who is out sick. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

An obvious way for the state to save money would be to merge Orick School District with its neighbor, Big Lagoon Union Elementary District, 15 miles south. But the merged district would only save money on facility costs and one superintendent’s salary, totaling less than $200,000 a year, because the new merged school would have higher expenses, such as the cost of transporting students 30 miles round-trip every day.

A merger would also alienate one of the communities, Wallace said. Both communities are highly invested in their schools and prize their independence and local control, he said.

How to close a district

In the early 20th century, California had more than 3,500 school districts, each with its own school board, superintendent and unique traditions. To save money, the state gradually winnowed the number down to the 1,000 that exist today. But there are holdouts. Sonoma County, for example, has 40 school districts, some with only a handful of students.

“It’s one of the most common questions we get: Why do we have 40 school districts?” said Eric Wittmershaus, spokesman for the Sonoma County Office of Education. “Everyone in the community agrees it’s too many. The problem is that no one wants to close their school.”

California has a lax attitude toward closing under-enrolled schools. The state lets a district’s average daily attendance slip below six before it intervenes. In those cases, the county can request a temporary waiver, in hopes that enrollment increases, or start the process of consolidating the district with one of its neighbors. But consolidation rarely happens because local officials and voters have the ultimate say.

Orick School students eat lunch in the cafeteria, which doubles as a gymnasium, in Orick on April 2, 2026. Nine students attend the school, which ranges from kindergarten to eighth grade. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

In 2011, the Legislative Analyst’s Office recommended upping the minimum district size to 100, but the recommendation was never implemented. In fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s current budget includes a 20% boost in funding for schools that the state deems to be “necessary small schools,” which are elementary schools with fewer than 97 students – or high schools with fewer than 287 students – at least 10 miles from the nearest other school.

Grand juries in Santa Clara and Sonoma counties have recommended consolidating small districts to save money, but neither of those reports led to changes.

Still, some experts say that financial realities may force the issue. Enrollment is declining nearly everywhere and it might not be the best use of taxpayer money to pay for half-empty classrooms and deserted playgrounds.

“Do we need to provide a school in every community? A post office? What if that community barely exists?” said Carrie Hahnel, senior associate partner at Bellwether, an education research nonprofit. “We guarantee a free public education to every child, but do we guarantee a school in every community?”

Now and then, districts will shutter. Last year, Green Point Elementary District, deep in the Klamath mountains, consolidated with a neighboring district when its enrollment fell to three (its per-pupil spending was $108,000 a year). In Sonoma County, Kashia Elementary District, with eight students last year, is at risk of closing next year.

Schools reclaimed by nature

Enrollment in Humboldt County has been declining steadily since at least the 1990s, and isn’t expected to rebound any time soon. A century ago the county had about 100 school districts, essentially one in every mill town, but as the mills closed the districts gradually closed, too.

Some of those towns — and their schools — have been swallowed up by the redwood forests. The old logging town of Falk, for example, had a school, mill, post office, dance hall and about 400 residents. After the mill closed, the town gradually emptied out and the Sierra Pacific lumber company, which owned the land, tore down whatever buildings were left in 1979. “Aside from the rose bushes and English ivy, the town of Falk has literally disappeared,” according to the county’s visitor guide.

Students play frisbee golf at Orick School in Orick on April 2, 2026. Nine students attend the school, which ranges from kindergarten to eighth grade. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

Michael Davies-Hughes, the county superintendent of schools, encourages small districts to plan ahead to avoid abrupt mid-year closures, which are disruptive to students, families and staff.

“We want districts to be proactive, so they have options,” Davies-Hughes said. “For some, the current model may be increasingly difficult to maintain.”

Outdoor ed and Native traditions

In Orick, older students take a bus 40 minutes every day to attend high school in McKinleyville. Wallace and Frick said it’s unrealistic to put younger children on a bus for long distances, especially in bad weather. Humboldt County has long, dark, rainy winters, with roads often blocked by fallen trees, floods or mudslides.

Besides, Frick and Wallace said, Orick School does a great job educating its students, which is reason enough to keep it open. It has an exemplary outdoor education program, with students going on regular excursions into the nearby wilderness, learning about the local flora and fauna, the seasons and forest ecosystem. They raise trout and steelhead to be released in local waterways, test water quality in the creek and watch pollywogs turn into frogs in classroom terrariums.

Wildlife is all around them. In addition to the elk, students can observe condors and falcons soaring overhead, deer and coyotes hanging around the field and even the occasional bear. Students learn to fish, camp, raft and surf.

About half the students are Native American, and the school offers a robust education in Native traditions and history. A Yurok volunteer comes regularly to teach Yurok culture through activities such collecting acorns and making mash, and extracting pine nuts from pinecones to make beads.

“I mean, come on, how many other schools are in such an incredible setting?” Frick said. “Orick is a great place to go to school.”

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Unions representing private security guards would gain a new advantage in organizing under California legislation that would compel companies to reach labor contracts if the firms want to provide use-of-force training.

State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas’ Senate Bill 1203 also seeks to raise pay for security guards and it would require their companies to offer more rigorous training.

Smallwood-Cuevas, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said guards on average make around $44,000 a year, the state poverty line, despite their companies generating an estimated $34 billion in revenue. She said guards also are being asked to take on increasingly dangerous roles without enough training.

“This bill asks us to stand up with these officers to strengthen and improve these working conditions and to ensure that across California that we are not only improving safety, but we’re also helping to build a safety pathway for workers in this sector,” Smallwood-Cuevas told the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee last week.

The committee voted to advance her bill to the Senate Public Safety Committee which is scheduled to discuss the measure Tuesday.

Security companies say the measure would add at least $1 billion to their costs each year and lead to fewer guards protecting the public.“California has led the nation in training requirements, and we applaud that,” Dean Grafilo, a lobbyist for private security firm Allied Universal told the committee. “However, this bill goes much further than is necessary or reasonable, and we simply cannot ignore the staggering financial burden this bill will impose on our industry and, by extension, California.”

There are an estimated 330,000 private security personnel in California, making the industry one of the state’s largest workforces, Smallwood-Cuevas said. California businesses and local governments are increasingly hiring guards to protect them from smash-and-grab robberies and other crimes. Security firms also will be called upon at this year’s World Cup games in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, the 2027 Super Bowl in Inglewood and the 2028 Olympics in California.

The measure, according to the business committee’s analysis, would expand training standards, increase annual training for security guards and require companies to compensate guards for time spent training.

It would only allow companies to provide “power to arrest” and use-of-force training if agreed to in union contracts. Those agreements would require workers to earn at least 30% above California’s $16.90 minimum wage and get overtime.The bill also would require state regulators to review and set minimum wages for security guards by 2028. Security industry officials say even a $1-an-hour raise for security workers would add $750 million to their costs each year.“SB 1203 will eliminate jobs making companies that seek to automate security functions more competitive thereby displacing the very people the bill intends to help,” David Chandler, president of the California Association of Licensed Security Agencies, Guards & Associates, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

Labor is a powerful Capitol force

The bill is the latest effort by labor unions to use the Legislature to pressure companies to allow unionization. The most notable recent effort was a multi-year legislative push that successfully got ride-share companies to back legislation that allowed their drivers to unionize.

About 20% of private security guards are unionized, according to the industry, slightly higher than the rest of the state’s workforce, in which about 15% of workers are unionized.

Unions have tremendous clout in the Legislature, due in large part to the money they spend on the political campaigns of Democratic lawmakers. Unions also deploy their networks of organizers to advocate for their chosen candidates.Service Employees International Union, the bill’s sponsor, is arguably the most influential labor organization in the state. The union and its affiliates have donated at least $21.4 million to lawmakers’ campaigns since 2015, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

Meanwhile, 33 of the 120 members of the Legislature are current or former union members, according to a California Labor Federation tally.

Some, like Smallwood-Cuevas, used to work for the unions that would benefit from their legislation.

Before entering politics, Smallwood-Cuevas once worked as an organizer for a local affiliate of SEIU that unionized security officers. Her campaigns have received at least $119,100 from SEIU and its affiliates since 2021, according to Digital Democracy.

Committee backs union bill

The union’s political clout as well as lawmakers’ sympathies for underpaid workers doing a dangerous job was on display last week at the business and professions committee. No committee members voted against the bill.Sen. Bob Archuleta, a Democrat representing Norwalk, asked Smallwood-Cuevas if he could be added to the bill as a symbolic co-author.“We use the term ‘first responders,’” he told the committee. “Sometimes it is these individuals and individuals like them that are first responders.”

Archuleta, a former reserve officer at the Montebello Police Department, said he used to arrive at crime scenes and “sure enough, there was a security officer there,” telling police “I got your back.”

Archuleta’s campaign has received at least $79,600 from SEIU and its affiliates, according to Digital Democracy.

One Democrat on the business committee expressed concerns.

Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat representing the Van Nuys area, said she didn’t have a problem with the bill’s intent to raise wages for guards. After all, she said she worked for five years as a security guard.But she said she felt the bill’s training requirements were duplicative or would override a law that the Legislature had passed last year on security personnel standards and training.

She said she also had concerns the requirements in the bill could end up preventing companies from hiring qualified training consultants due to restrictions limiting who’s authorized to do that work.“Right now, there are certain retired police officers that are turned to by security companies to provide that training,” she said. “And they’re no longer going to be given that option.”

Despite her concerns, she did not vote on the bill instead of casting a formal “no” vote.

As CalMatters has reported, legislators regularly dodge tough votes instead of voting “no” to avoid angering influential lobbying organizations.

Menjivar’s campaign has received at least $16,900 from SEIU, according to secretary of state filings.

“There were provisions within SB 1203 that she liked and a hard ‘no’ vote would send the signal that there is nothing the author or sponsors can do to move her to an ‘aye’ vote down the line,” Menjivar’s spokesperson, Teodora Reyes, said in an email.

Thomas Marshall Circe passed away on March 29, 2026 at the age of 86. He was born on April 10, 1939 in North Adams, Massachusetts, and had one older sister, Peggy. Tom was raised in Holyoke and Chicopee, Mass, where he spent his youth working in tobacco fields and a bakery after school and on weekends.

Tom enjoyed playing football and baseball in high school and loved ice skating and playing ice hockey on local ponds, with his friends. After graduating, he joined the United States Marine Corps and was stationed at Parris Island, South Carolina. It was there that he met his wife, Dorothy, and the two were married in 1960.

In 1961, Tom and Dorothy moved to California and settled in McKinleyville, where they raised their four children: David, Ron, Don, and Janet.

Tom worked for Simpson Timber Company for 32 years. Before and after his retirement, he enjoyed spending time on the golf course. He was also a devoted fan of the San Francisco 49ers. Tom had a sharp wit and a great sense of humor — if he was teasing you, it meant he liked you.

He loved hunting and fishing and spent many cherished hours outdoors with his children. Tom also deeply valued his friendships with his brothers-in-law, Richard Carr (Linda) and Larry Carr (Lisa).

Tom was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He was deeply loved and will be missed every day.

He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, of 66 years; his children, David (Cherie), Ron, Don (Jeanette), and Janet (David); his 10 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren; as well as his nephews, nieces, cousins and his faithful dog, Izzy.

A family memorial will be held later this summer at Tom’s favorite family ranch.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Tom Circe’s family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

On Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at 8 a.m., a much-loved poet, Gregory Alan Downing passed away after a long battle with cancer. Greg moved to Humboldt County in 1989 to play basketball at College of the Redwoods and has been a resident since. He was a passionate community activist in Eureka and Arcata for the homeless and mentally ill. He will be remembered by many as a local writer and poet.

An abundance of gratitude and thanks to the staff of St. Joseph’s Providence Hospital Eureka, CSUF Hospital Staff, the Palliative Care and Hospice House of Humboldt, and Ayers Family Cremation.

He leaves behind a beautiful and beloved wife, Heather Williams, as well as a wonderful and loving family.

Per Greg’s wishes, there will be no funeral or memorial service. Instead, Greg and Heather invite their friends to their home on Saturday, April 25, 2026, from 12 noon - 3 p.m., 4920 Spruce Way Arcata, CA 95521. Bring your favorite dish or flowers, but more importantly, bring your smiles and good memories to celebrate the life of Gregory Alan Downing.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Greg Downing’s family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

PREVIOUSLY:

• MUSICAL MEMOIR: Playing with Hubert Sumlin and Sunnyland Slim at Arcata’s Jambalaya Club, 1976
• MUSICAL MEMOIR: The Night Dan Hauser and Wes Chesbro Presented a Couple of Blues Greats With Keys to the City

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Author’s note:  This is the first story of a three-part series.

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When the Sunnyland Slim Band drove into a white-out blizzard on Interstate 80 it was just the beginning of the 2,100 miles of troubles ahead. 

The band left Blytheville, Arkansas the day before on October 28 after playing an all-night show at a juke joint with our leader, legendary Chicago blues pianist/singer, Sunnyland. The group included me on drums, Harry Duncan on harmonica and vocals and Chicago bassist Joe Harper.

We were going to meet up with the famous white blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield for a month of dates in the San Francisco Bay Area starting the first day of November. 

A Chicago native, Bloomfield had played with Sunnyland as a young man. He told Harry that Sunnyland was the first Black Chicago bluesman to invite him onstage to play on a Southside night club stage. He went on to play with the influential Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the mid-1960s, formed the San Francisco-based Electric Flag and recorded Super Session with Al Kooper. 

Bob Dylan recruited him to play on his ground-breaking album Highway 61 Revisited, which included “Like a Rolling Stone.” He considered Bloomfield the best blues guitarist in the country, as did many others. I listened to all those albums over and over while in college.

I was 21. I bought my first drum set two years earlier. I started learning how to play while a full-time student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I dropped out at the end of my junior year to become a professional drummer. That was in May and now I was on the road in October with Sunnyland, the man who gave Muddy Waters his recording career start in Chicago in 1947. He brought Muddy into Aristocrat Records – which later became Chess Records – as a sideman guitarist when he recorded on two of Sunnyland’s songs.

Harry Duncan, left, and Paul DeMark at Riverwood Inn, Phillipsville, California in 1979.

Sunnyland, 65, drove his mid-1960s Oldsmobile station wagon while Harry and I took turns driving a 1964 Ford Fairlane we had bought for $50 a month earlier.

Sunnyland argued with the 22-year-old Harry Duncan that we should take the southern route from Arkansas on Highway 66 to Los Angeles and then drive to San Francisco. Slim worried about possible bad weather. 

Harry won the battle. He visited a Triple A Insurance office in Wisconsin. They gave us a small “flip book” with maps detailing the road from Blytheville to San Francisco. 

We left Arkansas on October 28. The first show with Bloomfield was set for November 1, 1972 in Santa Cruz, California, four and a half days away. We drove through winding two-lane highways in Missouri and into Kansas.

It was too late to head south. We continued through Kansas into Colorado heading north. It was snowing in Denver when we pulled over at a gas station parking lot to sleep in our freezing cars for a few hours. 

“I told you we should take Route 66,” a highly irritated Sunnyland said to Harry.  “You got us driving on these pig trails!”

By the time we were driving west on frozen Interstate 80 through Wyoming, we could only drive about 15-20 mph.  It was almost impossible to see the highway in such a fierce blizzard.  Luckily, growing up in Wisconsin, I had driven in these conditions before. We saw numerous cars and trucks that had slipped off the highway and left abandoned on the side of the road. 

We white-knuckled it. Harry and I taking turns driving our car and Sunnyland driving solo. Bassist Joe Harper didn’t drive, which angered Sunnyland to no end.

 “The man doesn’t even drive,” Sunnyland complained to us in front of Harper. “You can’t be like that. I need 300-mile drivers.”  On the road, he rated sidemen on how far they could drive without needing a rest. 

We had a deadline to meet so we kept driving through the blizzard almost the entire state of Wyoming to the famous Little America Truck Stop on the western edge of the state. It was the biggest truck stop of its kind in the U.S. The Wyoming Highway Patrol blocked drivers from going west at that point because of the treacherous conditions.

Scores of truck drivers and travelers like us had to stay the night. The motel rooms were all taken. Dozens of people, including me, slept on the grimey, well-worn carpet of the lounge area outside Little America’s bathrooms. Using my jacket as a pillow, I managed to get a few hours of sleep. 

I remember thinking, “Can it get any worse than this?” 

The next morning the highway patrol let drivers head west. About 100 miles from Little America, smoke started pouring out of our Ford Fairlane’s engine. Luckily, we found a service station near the highway.  A mechanic said our antifreeze was empty and we’d damaged the radiator.  He assured us it could be fixed in a couple of hours. 

“Harry and Paul, you’re babies on the road,” Sunnyland said with disgust.  “You don’t even put antifreeze in your car.”

The station had a pool table for fun while customers waited. Sunnyland talked his way into playing a game of pool for money with two Wyoming men wearing cowboy hats. Sunnyland could disarm anyone with his friendly manner.

We went through parts of Utah and then down into Nevada. We stopped and ate at a Chinese-American restaurant in Elko. It was the first time I remember stopping at a restaurant to eat. We were beyond exhausted.  

The only time we stopped to rest was at Little America. Harry and I took turns driving while the other one slept.  On the other hand, Sunnyland in his Oldsmobile station wagon, with no help from Harper, drove all 2,100 miles with almost no sleep.  

Sunnyland had no patience for Harper who, in addition to not helping with the driving, was always complaining about feeling sick.

While we waited for our food to arrive, Joe complained about being cold.  Sunnyland sat straight up, looked hard at Joe and said in a menacing, low voice, “Joe, you say one more word, l’ll cut you.”

That shut us all up. Harry and I looked at each other warily as if to say, “Is he serious?” 

From that point we drove to San Rafael. California greeted us with a perfect, sunny first day of November. We arrived at a motel late in the morning and were able to get some rest before our first show with Bloomfield at the Opal Cliffs Inn in Santa Cruz later that night.

The Santa Cruz show started at 9. We arrived in plenty of time to set up our equipment.  The downtown club was packed with a menagerie of California long-haired counterculture people smoking pot, drinking and getting ready to free dance the night away. As a college student in the early 1970s in Madison, I was part of the counterculture there.  But this was California and it felt a lot wilder. 

When I set up my four-piece Ludwig drum kit, sound technicians converged to set microphones up on my drums. We were going to be broadcast live on a local radio station, a first for me.

The band sound-checked without Bloomfield. Finally he stormed through the back door of the club, 10 minutes before show time. He held his  Gibson Les Paul guitar and cord in one hand, no guitar case in sight. We were introduced and hit the stage. He plugged into his Fender amplifier and off we went. 

Bloomfield — wild curly hair, blue jeans and flannel shirt — sometimes played with the fury of a tornado and then sweetly and sadly behind Slim’s slow blues. He was tremendous playing the blues with emotion and skill. It felt like a jolt of electricity playing with him.

Fifteen shows in 30 days. The tour had begun.

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Thanks to Pamela Long for editing and Julian DeMark, photo-scanning. 

How should state-owned demonstration forests be managed? For private timber production or for climate, biodiversity, clean water, and other values?

That’s the question being considered by the California legislature with AB 2494 (Rogers). AB 2494 proposes a virtual reserval of priorities. Currently, state law directs that these public lands be managed for “maximum sustained timber production” while “giving consideration” to other resource management. Under AB 2494, managing for other resources takes top billing while still allowing for commercial timber production where that production is used as a tool to achieve the resource objectives.

EPIC staff Melodie Meyer and Josefina Barrantes join environmental attorney Alex Leumer to discuss.

Want to support? Sign the petition here.

Recently I found an article written by my grandfather, James Ballard, telling about his arrival and experiences in Humboldt County. He wrote this account at the request of the Telegraph World on his retirement from the Western Union telegraph service. At the end he remarks that he feels the story is too personal and would not be of interest to outsiders. He never mailed the article. It is published here for the first time.

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Our family came to California in the fall of 1875, arriving in Alameda in the middle of November, where we joined father, who had preceded us about four years, coming from our farm home in New Brunswick, Canada, a few miles from Fort Fairfield, Maine. After a couple of weeks’ stay in Alameda and San Francisco, we boarded a little coast steamer to Eureka, a thriving sawmill town on Humboldt Bay, in the heart of the redwoods.

My father, having spent most of his life lumbering in the woods of New Brunswick and Maine, naturally was attracted to the woods of northern California. In August of the following year, he was accidentally killed in the woods.

I was then a boy of seventeen, the oldest of six children. This meant no more schooling for me. It was up to me to ‘keep the home fires burning’ and the table supplied. The next four years were spent by me in the big sawmills of Eureka, where the work was from six to six. Three of those years I stood each day with my shoulder within a foot or two of three whirling circular saws placed one above the other to enable them to saw the immense redwood logs into boards and timbers. As it was up to the sawyer, the man at the lever, to pile up as many feet of sawed lumber each day as possible in order to hold his job, that meant the two of us who handled every stick of lumber that came from the saw, did not need to have the word “hustle” defined for us.

Mr. and Mrs. James Ballard on their wedding day in 1884.

In the summer of 1880, depression in the lumber business shut the mills down and I found myself without a job. But a job I must have, so I accepted the first to be offered on a farm twenty miles from Eureka. When this job came to an end, I immediately returned to Eureka and was soon offered a job as night clerk in the principal hotel there, The Vance, owned by one of the pioneer mill men and loggers, John Vance.

There I was brought into contact with the telegraph where heretofore I had been no closer than seeing the telegraph poles and wires along the streets and roads, and therefore thought nothing at all about the process of telegraphing. The telegraph office was a small room partitioned off from the hotel office. The clicking of the sounder attracted my attention at once and I began to listen to it, and to watch the operator as I went about my duties in the hotel office. I soon got the opportunity to inspect the instruments closely and soon understood their character and also borrowed a copy of the Journal of the Telegraph from the operator, in which I found some learner’s instruments advertised and also a copy of the telegraph code.

But these instruments were too costly for my means at that time. I saw that the key alone made sounds like the sounder and so I made a wooden key with nails for contact points. With this I practiced every night after midnight when I was mostly alone in the office. Within a year I was able to read everything that came over the wire when I listened. In the meantime I purchased two of the cheap learner sets and got scraps of zinc from the operator and some fruit jars, to set up a battery at home, putting one upstairs and the other down, and teaching my sister, Sara Ballard, the code. She was soon able to send to me.

I advanced from night clerk to day clerk and finally to manager of the hotel. When the owner leased the hotel I immediately secured a job as a telegraph repairman and worked at a repair station sixty miles from Eureka. I spent two years riding the telegraph trail there. Most of my section was over a mountain trail, necessitating the use of a saddle horse. I remember well my delightful experiences in that beautiful mountain country with its many streams filled with trout in the summer and salmon in the winter and the hills alive with game. In winter in that country it rained, not in drops, but in sheets and columns of water driven by wind that no clothes could keep out. I remember my appearance after a thirty-mile trip over the line in such a storm; fording the rushing streams and making long detours on trails around many fords when they became impassable.

A little touch of romance here. When I became marooned between fords on one of the streams, I was forced to seek shelter at a ranch house and there met the girl (Minnie Hunter) who became my wife the next year. Thus the association with the telegraph service led me to her, otherwise I never would have seen her. What is fate?

I remember my encounter with a mountain lion while riding the trail, and my experience as a tenderfoot, with bucking cattle horses that I had to use in riding the line.

Later I was transferred to Eureka as manager of that office where I served 26 years until failing health compelled me to try a smaller office in an effort to recover. Then came my year-and-a-half at Watsonville, Calif., as a result, and my return to the Eureka office and being compelled to retire to outdoor life. I recovered my health and returned to service as an operator in the main Western Union office in San Francisco.

I retired from the service at the age of seventy in 1928. I now pass the time studying economics and sociology … but mostly I study my favorite author … Emanuel Swedenborg, whose works are on the human soul, spiritual world and its spiritual laws of life … Added to this, I work as an amateur painter in oil, in which I sometimes produce pictures which please my friends to whom I present them. Not being a professional with a reputation, I do not try to sell them.

Now having written all this out it seems to me, making due allowance for bias of the author, that it reads well, in fact is quite a story, although it contains but a small part of my life as a telegrapher. I look back on the service with the greatest of pleasure and would gladly do it over again. In fact my whole telegraph service is surrounded by almost a halo of romance. The passing of that wonderful language in which man first communicated with man instantaneously over a long distance with the dot and dash, fills me with regret. The skilled Morse operator at each end seemed to be in such close touch with the personality of his comrade at the other end, that he learned to know him even better than if face to face. For me that language was a living, breathing soul, while the automatic telegraph is like a sixteen-inch gun; deadly efficient but without a soul…

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James Ballard and his wife, Minnie, lived out their retirement days in Oakland near their daughter, Bess, and their son, Ernest and their six grandchildren.