New business ventures arrive in Eureka in 1920
Inventor U. S. McMillan visited Eureka 100 years ago this week to install his new machine at the Cottrell Moulding Mill on Broadway so the company could start making paper pulp from redwood bark.
The Oct. 8, 1920 Humboldt Times said the electrically driven wire brush cylinder device was running and already “busily tearing redwood bark to fine shreds as the first step in the process of making paper from the waste materials of the Humboldt forests.”
Those shreds were then sucked up through a carrier pipe into bins, baled and shipped to a San Francisco mill, where they were pulped as part of the regular paper-making process.
McMillan told the newspaper he hoped his invention would be “the forerunner of many others” and said he was “enthusiastic about the outlook for the future of the bark and the new Humboldt industry.”
Other news from the week of Oct. 8 to 14, 1920, included:
The Humboldt Times reported on Oct. 9, 1920, that heavy rains had “played havoc” with important contract work being done in the city of Eureka.
Worswick Construction had to stop paving Broadway because workers couldn’t lay hot asphalt surfacing on the wet concrete. The Mercer-Fraser Co. halted work at Elk River, where contractors were placing a concrete dam below the old wooden one at the waterworks. Workers for the company were concerned that if the rains didn’t stop, the river would rise, which could increase pressure on the old dam to a breaking point.
On Oct. 10, 1920, Studebaker dealers in Humboldt County announced the long-awaited arrival of five Studebaker Light Six automobiles. These economical cars — built in Indiana — were said to offer “remarkable performance and advanced engineering.” The Humboldt Times said, “This is the little car that … has been eagerly awaited for by motorists the
country over.”
A new industry in the county — the raising and preparation of vetch — was described in the Oct. 12, 1920, Humboldt Times, which said the innovative enterprise “promised to become one of the most prosperous in the entire West and has been developed during the last few years as a result of the vision … of a successful farmer of this region, E. G. East of Rohnerville.” East — who received growing advice from the University of California College of Agriculture — originally purchased 300 pounds of “Black Purple” vetch seed from his home state of Georgia in 1918. That year, the cover crop harvest was doomed because of lack of rain. In 1919, aphids ate most of the plants. In 1920, East finally had success with his venture, reaping about a ton of vetch to the acre.
On Oct. 13, 1920, the Humboldt Times said that Col. Herbert Deakyne, district engineer, had been in town the day prior with George Whittemore, local engineer, to inspect the jetties, the government railroad from Samoa to the North Jetty and the proposed changes in the Arcata sewerage system, which called for the damming of Butcher Slough and extension of the mains to the bay.
H. L. Jackman, manager of the Western States Gas and Electric Co., received a telegram from State Power Administrator Butler on Oct. 14, 1920, announcing the end of a ban on the use of electricity for signs and window displays, which had been ordered when
water in the reservoirs of the hydro-electric plants began to run low due to a lack of rain. The message stated that recent rains had raised the water in the rivers to such an extent that there was no more need to conserve power. The order, however, meant very little to the users of power in Eureka, the paper said, as very few merchants complied with the order to begin with.