100 years ago, commercial fishing kicked off before Thanksgiving
The commercial crab season kicked off one week before Thanksgiving, the Humboldt Times reported on Nov. 22, 1921. The kickoff was shared with the opening of the commercial season for salmon and striped bass as well.
“In the last six weeks, 18,000,000 Chinook eggs were taken from the Klamath River,” the newspaper reported. “The salmon kiddies are old enough to be liberated in four to six months after spawning.”
Even in 1921, there were concerns about the climate’s impact on fish populations.
“The size of the catch of salmon this season cannot be predicted, but the long dry fall is not conducive to a large catch, although it may be a good one,” the newspaper reported.
Lumber concerns
The Humboldt Times editorial board voiced concerns about depleting local forests as a result of the lumber industry.
“Lumber is being cut in the United States at the rate of 33,798,900,000 feet a year,” an editorial stated. “That is equivalent to a plank four inches wide, two inches thick and 40 feet long, for each man, woman, and child.”
“Seems like a small amount,” the newspaper continued. “But picture a procession of 106,000,000 people, each walking out of the woods with a plank like that, and you realize that forests are being destroyed faster than they are growing. The day when lumber will be as scarce as hen’s teeth is not far in the future, unless the nation stops its forest destruction or replants a tree for each one cut down.”
Turkey tell-all and Thanksgiving editorial
• An editorial published Nov. 24, 1921, urged being thankful.
“It is a peculiarity of human hard luck that no matter how bad the seeming condition may be, he has not far to look to find someone who is much worse off that his own troubles may appear to be small in comparison,” the newspaper opined. “Even the turkey, if it is still alive this morning should be thankful that the price offered was not sufficiently tempting to his owner, and he may still hope to survive the coming festivities.”
• “This eleventh-hour message arrived in this morning’s mail from Washington, D.C. It is the last written statement of Gamaliel Turkey, who was executed last night and who today graces the festal board of Warren G. Harding, the president of the United States,” the Humboldt Times reported on Thanksgiving Day in 1921.
The turkey goes on to state, “Tonight, I die!” the newspaper reported.
Crime and public safety
• A jewel heist in Ferndale left a business down nearly $1,750.
“Diamonds and other jewelry valued at $1,750 was stolen from a jewelry store operated by P.M. Canepa in the heart of Ferndale business section late evening by an unidentified burglar who forced his way through a rear door into the establishment while the proprietor was at dinner and looted the safe and show window of the most valuable articles,” the newspaper reported.
• Four Korbel residents who mistook toadstools for mushrooms were poisoned,
the Humboldt Times reported a few days before Thanksgiving in 1921. A local woman “and her 8-yearold daughter were the most seriously affected by the poisoning, although two neighbors who had partaken of the toadstools were included in the attack,” the newspaper reported Nov. 22.
• The proprietor of a “soft drink parlor” was arrested after police found moonshine in a pair of pants hanging on the wall of a back room. “The raid, which was the first made under the (Volstad) ordinance, followed information obtained by the police from two inebriates arrested (a few days prior),” the Humboldt Times reported on Nov. 22, 1921.
“Even the turkey, if it is still alive this morning, should be thankful that the price offered was not sufficiently tempting to his owner, and he may still hope to survive the coming festivities.” — Editorial, Nov. 24, 1921