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As miners seeking gold moved into Del Norte and Humboldt counties, the distance between them and the supplies they needed became a sore point. Some of the mines were clustered near the Oregon border.

The distance to the port cities of Trinidad and Humboldt Bay probably seemed longer each time miners traveled it. In eyeballing the area for a likely supply-oriented town, residents hit on the road and anchorage south and east of Point St. George — laying out a town there during spring 1853 and calling it Crescent City after the name of its beach.

The town was born when A. M. Rosborough bought a land warrant in J.F. Wendell’s name for the 320 acres of land that became Crescent City. T.P. Robinson surveyed the area that month and divided it into town lots, according to “A History, Del Norte County, California,” written by A.J. Bledsoe and printed by The Humboldt Times in Eureka in 1881.

Twenty-eight people bought lots in the new town for prices ranging from $100-$1,000. Of them, seven had invested in an expedition to Point St. George.

“These gentlemen should be looked upon as the founders of Crescent City,” wrote Bledsoe.  He included F.E. Weston, G.W. Jordan, A.K. Ward, R. Humphreys, P.M. Peters, and J.K. Irving in the group.

Because Wendell’s land grant was later declared void, the U.S. Government claimed the land. Those who had invested came close to losing their lots and money but were spared the loss when the Common Council of Crescent City bought the land at $2.50 per acre and issued investors certificates of title.

The area soon grew from a small collection of tents to “a good-sized town,” writes Bledsoe.

Workers opened a road into the interior, and the town immediately went into the business of supplying miners. The area boomed that summer, quickly bypassing Trinidad in size and logistic importance.

Large numbers of settlers, attracted by the area’s mineral and agricultural resources, soon arrived. Although inland mines didn’t produce as much as those of other parts of California, they yielded enough gold to whet miners’ appetites.

So legislators acted in February 1856 to make Orleans Bar the county seat for Klamath County, which encompassed what later would become Del Norte County. Although voters in Klamath favored the idea by a large majority, Crescent City’s residents found it a lot of trouble to transact any business there because of the mountains that separated the two places.

In 1857 legislators carved Del Norte County from the northern portion of Klamath, making Crescent City the new county’s seat. Twenty-three years later, the state’s legislators approved a measure annexing the territory of Klamath to the counties of Siskiyou and Humboldt, disincorporating one of the old California counties completely.

Her tee-shirt,
Tight blue jeans,
Wind-blown long hair,
And a smile so sweet;
She had me at ‘Hi’
Oh, how she knew it,
I was falling,
She pushed me from the cliff,
Where the water is deep.

Though sparsely populated by East Coast and Western European standards, American Indians had lived along the coast and in the mountainous interior for at least 3,000 years. Before Crescent City was established in 1853, a trail existed down the coast from Pebble Beach to the mouth of the Klamath.

It was used primarily by the Tolowa and Yurok tribes. Jedediah Smith is later said to have used the trail.

The route followed the beach and was more easily used at low tide. It ran over Ragged Ass Hill to end at Last Chance.

Some travelers also accessed the beach via Damnation Creek to end at Wilson Creek. The trail was improved from the Klamath area to Crescent City during the mid-1850s when a second trail that led from Fort Ter-Waw to the False Klamath was cut.

About five years earlier, a trail had been cut from Trinidad to the mouth of the Klamath. It also followed the beach at the base of the Gold Bluff hills.

It was used by J.F. Denny after 1862 to transport mail between Arcata and Crescent City via Trinidad and Gold Bluffs. Denny made $1,750 a year to make one round trip per week.

The trail paralleled the beach from Stone Lagoon to Lower Gold Beach, then split. One branch continued down the beach.

The other led up over a ridge north of Major Creek and went east to Boyes’ Prairie on Prairie Creek. It next headed west and rejoined the other trail at Upper Gold Bluff.

It then paralleled the ocean to the mouth of the Klamath River. Peter Louis DeMartin, one of the settlers who lived on Wilson Creek, used mules to pack in when he began living there.

For trips that involved larger quantities of goods to be moved, he rented a boat owned by Jim Isle. It was rowed by six men.

Travel along coastal areas was usually by boat, except when the high seas affected their travel. When that happened, travelers generally rode horses and follow the trails to Eureka.

Yurok rowers would ferry travelers across the Klamath. When they negotiated Ragged Ass Hill, travelers dismounted to ease the horse’s way but held onto its tail to make their own upward passage easier.

Summertime is here, although one would not know it with the way the weather has been the last few months. Several years ago I had the job of doing the weekend weather forecast at a station in Eureka, California.

I’ve never received so much hate mail in all of my life. It seemed that everything I said the weather would do was wrong.

It appeared my forecasts messed up a lot of people’s weekend plans. And I have never worked as a weather forecaster since.

What makes me different from those people is that I have something greater to believe in — I have a backup plan.

It can be something simple like reading a book or writing a friend a letter, taking a Sunday drive on a Wednesday afternoon, window-shopping is a fun activity, going to the movies is great heat relief, taking the dog for a walk, riding a bike around the block, hanging out at the library, washing the car, truck or motorcycle, packing a picnic lunch and eating it on the living room floor, drawing chalk pictures on the back patio, filling a wading pool and sitting in it, doing some gardening, taking photographs, flying a kite and having rain ponchos ready.

It’s very easy if you look at what you are trying to do. Generally, my initial plan is to get out of the house and do something with the family.

That’s my first plan and it always falls in line with my backup plan.

The Yurok Tribe had long lived along the banks of the Klamath River by the time European and American explorers found the waterway. Those included a group of miners aboard the Cameo on its second voyage exploring the North coast in 1850.

The vessel docked and the group sought the mouth of the Klamath River. The Yuroks helped the explorers across the river and the group claimed land on its south bank.

A gold rush to the region would disrupt salmon spawning in the waterway that the Yurok depended on. The name Klamath comes from the word Tlamatl, which means swiftness in Chinook.

In March 1850 a vessel built in Baltimore, Md., sailed along the Northern California coast in search of an entrance to the Lost Coast. The Laura Virginia, captained by Lt. Douglass Ottinger, left San Francisco and sailed northward looking for Humboldt Bay.

They passed the entrance to the bay due to the shape of the coastline and the sea crashing into the breakers, however. On their northbound voyage past Humboldt Bay, Ottinger, and his crew reconnoitered – or inspected – the coast from Cape Mendocino to Point St. George.

While in the area of what is now Crescent City, they discovered the Paragon, a 125-ton fishing boat from San Francisco, stranded on the beach. The wreckage of the Paragon is considered the first vessel to be lost along the Del Norte Coast.

A few days after finding the Paragon, Laura Virginia turned southward, eventually “finding” the mouth of the Klamath River. Ottinger’s second officer H.H. Buhne was deployed in a small boat to inspect the river, though he did not attempt to cross it or move upstream.

From Buhne’s mission, Ottinger reported: “The Klamath is a river of considerable magnitude … with but few little breakers on its bar … This stream, I have no doubt, can be safely entered by vessels of 50 or 100 tons, and rafts of timber floated to ships outside where the anchorage is good …”

From the Klamath, the Laura Virginia continued south until stumbling upon the elusive entrance to Humboldt Bay. Ottinger named the bay after Baron Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist, geographer, and explorer.

The sailors on the Laura Virginia then named themselves the Laura Virginia Association and began settling in the area. Within four days of discovering the bay, Warnersville was founded with Arcata and Eureka soon to follow.

Just over a year ago, I bit down hard on my faith. I became a true and hardened believer in Christ Jesus.

To this end, I have made it a practice to study my bible daily, pray as often as I can, attend church regularly, and work on my spiritual habits. That also means I have stumbled and fallen more than once. And there have been more than a few times I have discovered myself surprised by occurrences.

I visited my sister’s church and went through the first steps of a ‘Sozo.’ I was uncomfortable with it when someone said I was a ‘prophet.’ That put me up there with Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, and the like. I know better than that.

My prayers have placed me on the humorous end of God’s funny bone a couple of times as well. There are days I feel as if I am about to be crushed by my debts, so I have prayed to God to give me the strength to carry on with the burden.

Well, my friends, I opened my mailbox and found a bill from California for 108 thousand dollars for my mother’s hospital care when she was dying. It came with an envelope and receipt that said. ‘Please remit in full.’

I looked up at Heaven and said, “God, this ain’t what we discussed.”

But I knew that I had to trust in him and I just kept praying and going about my work, trying hard not to worry. At the end of the week, I received another notice from California. This one said that because my mom had a child with a disability, state law exempted me from having to pay the bill.

There is also a bit of humor in what I call the ‘Novice’s Approach to Prayer Mistake #l.’ It’s like jumping out of an airplane with a parachute and no operating instructions.

You have an idea how to use it but you’re not certain of the way it works and you have no reference point of what will happen when pulling the rip chord or landing on the ground.

My prayer was simple, “God, please make me more like Jesus.”

I had no idea about its ramifications. Suddenly, I suffered things that were horrible.

My mom passed away, my wife was in a head-on accident, my wife’s mother died, I lost my job, a close friend died, and my family stopped talking to me. The list went on and on.

I got mad at God for letting all these bad things happen to me. It dawned on me a few months back that I had gotten pretty much what I had asked for. I had asked to be more like Jesus.

Jesus suffered. He had no home of his own, his hometown disowned him, his family thought He was off his nut when he claimed to be the Messiah, he was nearly stoned in the Temple, nearly tossed off a cliff, was wrongly accused, was beaten, and finally nailed to a Cross.

First, I am not comparing myself to our Lord, Jesus Christ. I just asked for something that was unattainable for me and God had to show me how unreasonable my request was.

Secondly, this is not to say that God had anything to do with all those ‘bad’ things.’ I realize He lets Satan do things to us so that God can draw us closer to Him, which is what He did.

I am close enough now to know that I’m certainly not good enough to be like Jesus, so I am back at Prayer 101, “God, please be in me in everything that I do today, amen.”

Finally, I am happy that the Lord blessed me with the ability to beg for mercy when I know that I am overwhelmed. And that He gave me a sense of humor, too. I have used both wisely in this case, because I am certain that had I not asked God for his gentle mercies, Satan would have found some sick son-of-a-gun willing to staple my hide to a wall somewhere.

Time once again to start that annual outing to your family’s favorite vacation spot. If your family is anything like mine, then that spot is a campground. And like every year we have to be careful about the use of fire.

Here are some simple – rules to follow: use the regulation burn areas for fires, never leave a fire unattended, put out your fire by adding water, stirring, adding more water and stirring again . Continue until you can touch the ashes with your bare hand and not get burned.

With that said …

Wildfire season is here and this season promises to be one of the most explosive seasons on record. We had a late, rainy season, creating new vegetation. Unseasonably high temperatures have followed this, which has dried out that vegetation.

One strike from a thunderhead, one carelessly tossed cigarette butt, one spark from an exhaust pipe and there will be a wildfire. This will cost thousands, if not millions of dollars this year throughout the western United States.

Prior to the crossing of Prairie Schooners , the native populations that lived and thrived on the plains used fire as a tool. They would set fire to the grasslands to help control the over growth of grasses and wild life.

This activity is also reported to have occurred in the desert areas on the United States as well as the forest lands. It is still used to a lesser extent by the forest service and other agencies to help curtail wild land fires. It is commonly called ‘Controlled Burning.’

But what happens when a fire starts high in the mountains, say by a couple of misguided hikers? The Forest service and other agencies move in and attempt to stop the fire before it completely burns the woodlands down.

This is a waste of time and money!

Firefighters should immediately move to protect homes and businesses in the area and the fire should be allowed to burn its self out. It will eventually do exactly that.

Tree-huggers everywhere are gasping for air at the suggestion that a fire should be allowed to decimate an entire forest. They are crying out, “What about the birds, the plants and the animals that cannot escape?”

They will escape, or enough of their kind will escape and they will repopulate.

When Mount St. Helens erupted over two decades ago, scientist and environmentalists both proclaimed that it would be dead zone for at least a hundred years. Some one forgot to tell that to the deer and bear that popular the area as well as the trees that are growing and the new grasses that have sprouted since that catastrophe.

Let us all save some green this fire season.

First, be careful with fire. Second, firefighters should protect homes and businesses first. Lastly, let wildfires burn wild.

While working at John Asquaga’s Nugget in Sparks, one of my keno writing supervisors was an ancient and long-time cowboy named Kenny, bowed legs and a big rodeo belt buckle. I cannot remember his last name.

He had grown up in Nevada and one day told me this tale he had heard from his Dad and Uncles. I wrote it down because it seemed too fantastic at the time. Kenny has more than likely passed away since the last time I saw him in 1988.

In what is now the Mt. Irish mountain range, where the vast desert stretches out in all directions, Johnson found a silver knife with a handle encrusted with rubies.

The knife is ancient in its craftsmanship, hinting at a bygone era of skilled artisans. Enchanted by the discovery, Johnson decided to take it with him.

Unbeknownst to Johnson, his find had not gone unnoticed. Far beyond the cave’s entrance, a pair of glowing amber eyes of a giant wolf, its fur as dark as the midnight sky, had sensed the disturbance and began to stalk its unwitting prey.

As Johnson moved through the rocky terrain, an uneasy feeling crept over him. He could sense a presence, an unseen force trailing behind him.

The hairs on Johnson’s neck stood on end, and he quickened his pace. With each step, the stalking wolf closed the distance. The animal’s massive paws moved soundlessly over the rocky ground as it kept pace with the man.

Johnson’s heart pounded in his chest as he reached the edge of a small clearing, and desperation fueled his actions as he hastily attached the silver knife to the end of a sturdy tree limb. He thrust it into the soft earth near the entrance of a nearby cave, creating a makeshift weapon.

Hiding in the shadows, Johnson waited, his breath held as the giant wolf emerged from the darkness. The beast circled the clearing, its predatory gaze fixed on the lone man.

The ruby-encrusted handle of the knife gleamed in the moonlight, catching the wolf’s attention. With a guttural growl, the wolf lunged at Johnson.

In a swift motion, Johnson grasped the improvised weapon and thrust it with all his might into the beast. The beast let out a mournful howl before collapsing to the ground.

In fear, Johnson retreated to the edge of the clearing. The morning light brought shock and horror.

There, lying on the ground, was the lifeless body of a man, the knife still embedded in his chest. The man’s face twisted in pain, and it was evident he had suffered a similar fate to the giant wolf.

Blood stained the ground, and Johnson noticed that he, too, bore wounds from the previous night’s encounter. Without hesitation, Johnson began the long trek to the nearest settlement of Hiko.

Weakened by his wounds, hungry and thirsty, Johnson dropped after once more losing his footing, this time unable to continue. As he lay dying, a Good Samaritan stumbled upon him.

The passerby, a middle-aged man named Tabor, seeing Johnson near death, decided to help the distressed man. He loaded the man in his wagon and took him to Hiko.

Tabor sought the aid of the local sheriff’s office. Breathless and pale, Johnson recounted the events, desperately trying to convince the deputy that he was not responsible for the death of the mysterious man.

He spoke of the giant wolf, the knife, and the dangers that lurked in the Nevada wilderness.

However, the deputy remained skeptical, finding Johnson’s story difficult to believe. To him, it sounded like a concoction of delirium induced by the wilderness or, worse, a calculated attempt to deflect blame.

Determined to investigate, the deputy, accompanied by a small posse, set out to the clearing where Johnson claimed the incident occurred. When they arrived, they found the lifeless body of a white man, as the injured man had described, a knife still protruding from the chest.

The deputy, convinced of foul play, ordered Johnson’sarrest. The town’s townspeople demanded justice, and Johnson found himself accused of murder.

A swift trial ensued in one of the many saloons. Despite Johnson’s impassioned pleas and attempts to prove his innocence, the jury pronounced him guilty, and the judge sentenced him to be hanged by the next until dead.

An ominous shadow of the gallows loomed over Johnson as he faced his final moments. As the noose tightened around his neck, the town watched in somber silence as Johnson’s dreams of wealth ended with a six-foot fall.

The following month, a giant wolf began roaming the outskirts of Hiko. Many believe the beast still exists, searching for the knife, melted down long ago and for the rubies sold to a merchant in Virginia City when Nevada was still a territory.

Right before he committed suicide, he said, “They are not telling the truth about what is going on down there.”

One year after the Oklahoma City bombings, the officer who saved eight lives was found dead under strange circumstances. On Wednesday, April 19, 1995, Sergeant Terrence Yeakey responded to calls that a bomb had gone off in the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

At the time, I was en route to pick up passengers at a rehabilitation facility in Reno. Later, I called my dad to see if he was okay because he said his office was across from the Murrah Building, learning he was nowhere in the area.

Yakey was the first officer to respond that day and was able to save eight people before the second floor collapsed, injuring his back so severely after falling through the floors he was not able to continue. An hour and a half later, police arrested Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were anti-government extremists.

A year after the bombing, Oklahoma City officials selected Yakey and 90 other officers to receive the city’s Medal of Valor. However, three days before the ceremony, on Wednesday, May 8, 1996, he was found dead in a field near his hometown of El Reno, Okla.

Investigators found his car abandoned along the side of a dirt road, with a lot of blood inside, but his body was found about a mile into the field off of that road. While they did not find a gun at the scene, he had been shot in the head and covered in cuts.

According to one report, “While still inside his Ford Probe that he had parked on a lonely country road, Yakey slashed himself 11 times on both forearms, twice on his throat, then apparently seeking an even more private place to end his life, he crawled 8,000 feet through rough terrain and climbed a fence before putting a gun to his head, which took him to the hereafter.”

He did not leave a note, and there was no investigation or autopsy, but police still ruled that he had taken his own life. Not in the report are the facts that investigators said he showed signs of being bound at one point, had rope burns on his neck, ligature marks on his wrists, and that an FBI agent showed up and suspiciously found a gun in an already thoroughly searched area within five minutes of being there.

Terry had an ex-wife named Tania, who was the mother of his children, McKenna, 4, and Sheridan, 2, and claimed that when she picked him up from the hospital after the bombing, he started crying and said, “It is not what they are saying it is. They are not telling the truth about what is going on down there,” but would not elaborate any further.

She claimed that two or three days after the bombing, he asked her to take him back to the site so he could check for something under the daycare center, but turned away from the area. She claimed that his supervisor made him rewrite his report on the bombing and that he started showing up at her house at strange hours and acting very anxious and afraid.

She said he started gathering up all of their insurance paperwork for her to keep and that he wanted them to get remarried so that their daughters would be protected if something happened to him, and that he knew something was coming fast and was trying to protect his family, but he was not fast enough. After he passed, she went bankrupt and lost their house, and she said she knew for sure if he had planned to take his life, he would have made sure they were cared for first.

His daughters did not receive a cent of his pension. Tonya said that the police department was much more concerned with promoting a narrative that he took his own life because he felt guilty for not being able to save more people during the bombing and being estranged from his wife and children, which was simply not true.

The reality is that there was a high-level federal operation called PATCON, which infiltrated the “patriot movement” across the U.S. during the Clinton administration, with informants and provocateurs likely connected to the OKC bombing. His killing was to cover up federal assets, like informants, provocateurs, and infiltrators, who were involved in the bombing plot, shielding the federal government from potential blowback.

Thank goodness for my note-taking skills as I share a tale that seems straight out of a Spaghetti Western comedy as we go back to the 70s when the Comstock became an unlikely battleground for the Silver City Guard’s wild antics during the Bicentennial Wagon Train’s stopover.

Captain “Clicker” Slocum led the charge, and the results were legendary to hear him tell it. We worked together at AM 1270 KPLY in Sparks during the early months of 1986, so I heard him speak of the escapade more than once.

“So,” he’d begin…”When the news broke that the Bicentennial Wagon Train would make its first stop in Silver City en route to Valley Forge, local committee chairman Grahame Ross, who also ran the Golden Gate Bar and doubled as a Generalissimo in the Silver City Guard, vowed to make it a day to remember.”

The Silver City Guard, known for its snazzy uniforms and annual parade accolades in the “Armed Rabble” category, was called into action. With the sudden announcement, preparations were frantic. Two Winnebagos, a Mayflower moving van, and a pickup truck hauling Sani-Huts joined the wagon train, setting the stage for mayhem.

Clicker, Bo’s’n Muller, and Lance Corporal White studied contour maps and planned strategy late into the night while Ross raised the red alert. Wing Commander Beaupre lamented the loss of the Silver City Air Force, sold for scrap a week prior, so his squadron would serve as infantry.

As the day of reckoning arrived, troopers gathered at the Tahoe Beer House, now serving as a command post, while Clicker prepared for “desert warfare” at the bar. The Guard was ready, with Cannoneer Greg Melton wheeling in the heavy artillery on his motorcycle.

However, things turned when Scout Charlie Wade, tasked with tracking the wagon train, whispered over the phone, “Captain, I am drunk and surrounded by the enemy!”

A baffled Clicker replied, “Bad news, men, our scout is bombed.”

Undeterred, the Guard continued to prepare for action. Recruits kept reporting for duty, and as the last report came in, the wagon train was heading toward Silver City.

Clicker ordered, “Men, they’re coming. Let’s move out!”

Troopers readied for action, some practicing strangleholds, others saber thrusts, and a few performing the Ghost Dance.

The Guard’s dramatic march towards the wagon train turned into a comedy of errors, with Clicker, momentarily confused about his missing sword, discovering his children playing with it. His command car raced off without him, leaving him surrounded by townsfolk.

Despite the initial confusion, the Guard sprang into action with a thunderous cannon blast, catching the wagon train by surprise. The teamsters and outriders halted their wagons, and the Guard charged down the rocky slope, armed and exuberant.

As the mayhem unfolded, Clicker gestured the wagons to the side of the road, “Consider yourselves under the protection of the Silver City Guard.”

The Guard raised a triumphant cheer, and Darius Jahaver added a fitting soundtrack with his banjo. Finally, Clicker thanked his troops for their service and dismissed the Guard, leaving behind a baffled but safe wagon train.

Clicker passed in 1992 or 1993, and his ashes were ceremoniously blasted over the desert landscape by Cannoneer Melton (whom I’d get to know better as “Straight Arrow” later that year after going to work for KBUL 98.1 FM) and a while back, I found Clicker’s name on one of the many bronze plaques in Virginia City set by the E. Clampus Vitus in honor of historical events or places, but damned if I can recall to what that metal tablet was affixed.