The Humboldt County Historical Society is supported by a Board of Directors, which meets once a month to plan events, orchestrate fundraising efforts, and oversee other organizational operations. These board meetings are open to members. Any interested community member may apply to volunteer as a member of our board. Elections are held on the first Saturday in November prior to the First Saturday Lecture.
Humboldt County Historical Society President, James Garrison, and Secretary, Lara Garrison. Jim was formerly our archivist, then began his career as a teacher in Redway. He is the author of the Arcadia book, Scotia & Rio Dell. Lara is also a teacher at Redway and has been a long-time volunteer at HCHS. They are a talented and effective team!
OFFICERS for the 2023 - 2024 TErm
President: James Garrison
Vice President: Mark Castro
Past President: Dr. Alexandra Service
Secretary: Lara Garrison
Treasurer: Jack Irvine
Directors
Catherine Alexander, Nick Angeloff, Sile Bauriedel, Susan Doniger, Royal McCarthy, Sabrina Navarro, Charles Petty,and Deborah Storre
Living Past Presidents
Arlene Hartin, Catherine Mace, Tom Mays, Leonard McLaughlin, Robert Palmrose, Jack Nash, Armeda Reitzel, Bill Rich, Jerry Rohde, James Roscoe, Renee Ross, Merry Schellinger Phillips, Steve Lazar, Alexandra Service, Joe Walund, Catherine Mace
HCHS Past Presidents Page
A page to honor our past presidents who have served over the last 75+ years.
President’s Place for Spring 2024
I am excited and honored (and nervous!) to be taking on the role of President of the Board of Directors. In writing this, I have looked for inspiration from the many amazing people who have filled this role before me. At the Barnum House, there is a plaque that lists all the Society’s past presidents; it is truly an all-star cast, and very big shoes to fill. The Society has been blessed to have been stewarded through nearly eight decades by the most competent and caring people any organization could ask for, including our Immediate Past President, Dr. Alexandra Service. I only hope I can bring as much energy, creativity, and commitment as my excellent predecessors have done!
I have been fortunate to have been involved with the Society for nearly a decade now; first as the Society’s Collections Archivist, then as Collections Manager, and most recently as the Secretary of the Board of Directors. As an employee of the Society, I was able to work on creating new outreach opportunities and find ways to make the Society more visible to Humboldt County residents; we started making appearances at county events and festivities like the Humboldt County Fair, Bigfoot Daze, Wildwood Days, and other local celebrations of what makes our county great. (We made thirty gallons of chili for the Fortuna Rodeo’s Chili Cook-Off and had a great time engaging with the public!) This exposure is a great opportunity to remind the people of Humboldt what our Society is all about and is vital for shoring up membership.
I was also able to create an ongoing, yearly fundraiser and outreach opportunity for the Society with our HCHS Calendar. I started the annual HCHS Calendar in 2017 with the help of Humboldt Petroleum and a host of other local sponsors. This fundraiser is still going strong, having just wrapped up sales of our eighth annual calendar. The calendar has given the Society the opportunity to show off parts of our amazing photographic collection that might not otherwise be highlighted, and has made our collection more accessible and meaningful to people. It has also given us a chance to get to know some of our local business owners and allow them a chance to be a part of keeping Humboldt’s history alive.
Keeping our history alive—and this Society operating—is no easy task. We are completely dependent on our membership and their good will to support us, and we haven’t always had the best success at keeping enough members to make this work. My goals for my term as president will focus largely on membership and on the ways we can all work together to make it grow in this next year. We live in an amazing, supportive community, full of people who sincerely care about their history and about the success of organizations like ours. We just need to remind them that we are here. When I have been at community events in the past, when things got slow, I would call out to passers-by, “I’ve got your grandma’s stuff!” which never failed to stop them in their tracks. I would then quickly explain to them that the HCHS has a lot of “stuff ” from a lot of “grandmas” and that, by becoming a member, they could help us to house, preserve, and care for these important relics from our Humboldt families. I was reminding them that we are here, and that we continue to need their support.
Let’s do all we can in 2024 to make our Society more successful and more secure for future generations. I know I can depend on your support.
“In 1852 the government and the Indian chiefs of the various tribes signed an agreement by which the government agreed to pay the Indians for their lands on condition that they stop their war-like attitude toward the white settlers…In California, however, the Indians claim that no settlement has ever been made, and the debt to the California Indian tribes is said to represent at the present time, the enormous sum of $150,000,000.”
The 1923 All-Indian Celebration deserves a much longer article—which I or another historian may write for some future Humboldt Historian. For now, I’m grateful to have gained glimpses into an important story from our county’s history, a story I might never have known about without the chance discovery of a 100-year-old photograph.