Gov. Friend Richardson visits Eureka in 1923
Gov. Friend Richardson arrived in Humboldt County on March 2, 1923, following an inspection of the Redwood Highway — U.S. Highway 101 — all the way to Crescent City, the Humboldt Standard reported on the front page.
A reception was held at the Eureka Inn at 7 p.m. that evening with members of the highway commission and local officials including a judge and the president of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce.
Further in the paper, there was a look at Richardson’s educational goals, which were “commended,” the Humboldt Standard reported.
The former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology lauded Richardson for his efforts.
“The situation, as developed under Gov. Richardson’s efforts, is likely in the end to help education in the same true sense, not to hurt it,” Dr. Harry S. Pritchett said at a rotary club meeting. “There must be clear answers in the question, ‘What is the school for?’ What sort of school is needed for our present-day needs?”
Mysterious auto accident
The Humboldt Standard reported on an auto accident involving several people whose vehicle went over a cliff on March 3, 1923.
The article under the headline, “Mystery shrouds auto accident; doctor refuses to give names,” described a man believed to be named “Blum” and his aunt, whose vehicle toppled off the edge of the highway and came to a stop around 100 feet below the edge of the highway about two miles south of Requa.
“Blum and his aunt, en route for Crescent City and traveling along the narrow road which skirts the edge of the cliff, with the ocean waves washing its foot nearly 560 feet below, got too near the edge of the road,” the newspaper reported. “The road caved down and their car toppled over the cliff, fetching up 100 feet below against the tree growing on the steep descent. When the car struck the tree, it was thrown back against the slope of the hill, crushing the woman between it and the hillside and throwing Blum out and breaking his collar bone.”
Blum climbed the sloped and walked three miles down the road to a ranch, where he was able to get help and call for an ambulance.
Because of the stormy conditions, it was difficult to get the call to Eureka.
“Sending a call for an ambulance was not as easy as it would seem for the storm having thrown down the telephone wires to Eureka beyond the Hamilton ranch,” the newspaper reported. “The call had to be routed via Crescent City thence around San Francisco to Eureka.”
The accident occurred around 5 p.m. on a Saturday. The ambulance arrived around 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. The ambulance arrived at an Arcata hospital around 6 p.m. Sunday evening.
Storm damages in Hydesville
Wind storms swept through the county in early March 1923 and left much of the same issues residents continue to see in rural Humboldt County today.
“The heavy winds of Friday and Saturday blew down some of the decrepit telephone poles in the neighborhood, laid low some of the ancient fences and sent the shingles flying off some of the buildings,” the Humboldt Standard reported on March 6.
Crime in Hydesville
A man “under the influence of moonshine” was reportedly “the cause of a little excitement” in a Hydesville home, the March 7, 1923, edition of the Humboldt Standard reported.
The housewife in the home woke early to begin her day and “when she attempted to open the kitchen door, she found it to be held tightly by a force from the outside, the more she turned the knob or pulled on the door, the more tightly it was held by unseen hands,” the newspaper reported.
After giving the door a “severe wrench,” it opened and a man pushed past the housewife and sat down next to the stove.
“Thoroughly angry, she plyed her uninvited guest with such pre-emptory intentions as: ‘Who are you?’ ‘What are you doing here?’ Followed by the admonition to get out of here at once or you’ll get into trouble. This had the effect of bringing forth a torment of broken English which emphasized the idea that this was his boarding house, that he had been up all night and wanted to go to bed.”
He then proceeded to take off his shoes and the woman’s son was called from his bedroom upstairs. The son urged the man to leave the house.
Baseball journalists
The Humboldt Standard and the Humboldt Times employees challenged each other to a game of baseball in March 1923. The two papers had previously faced off in a football game and decided to move the challenge to baseball.