HUMBOLDT HARBOR 



w. H. he:ue:r 



Colonel of the United States Corps of EBgrliteers, Retired 



HUMBOLDT BAY, California, is situated between the parallels of 40° 

 and 41° north latitude, is about 200 miles north of San Francisco, 

 and is the most important lumber port on the California coast. 

 The bay is an estuary about fourteen miles in length and varies 

 from one half to four miles in width. It has a high-water area of 

 about twenty-four square miles, with a mean rise and fall of tide of 4.4 

 feet. A channel depth of twelve feet is carried to Areata, near the head 

 of the bay, and eighteen feet at low water can be carried to Eureka. 



A narrow sand spit, less than a mile in width separates the bay fronn 

 the ocean. It has an opening through it about 2,100 feet in width, which 

 forms the entrance to the bay or harbor. Prior to the improvements of this 

 entrance in 1889 by the United States Government, there was seaward of 

 the entrance a shallow dangerous bar, having one or more channels varying 

 from twelve to twenty feet in depth over it, the locations of which were 

 constantly changing and which rarely occupied the same position during 

 two consecutive years. The seas on the bar were very violent and fleets of 

 vessels have been penned up in the harbor for a week or more awaiting an 

 opportunity to get to sea. 



The plans for improvement, made by the officers of the United States 

 Corps of Engineers, consisted of two immense rock walls to be reasonably 

 parallel to each other about 2,000 feet apart, each to be about 8,000 feet 

 in length and to extend from the shore to the crest of the bar. The work 

 was estimated to cost $2,057,615. The work was commenced in 1889, 

 and with occasional interruptions was completed in 1899, at an actual cost 

 to the Government of $2,040,203, or for a trifle less than the estimate. The 

 work was done by contract. These training walls of rock (jetties) were 

 placed in position from trestle-work of piles carrying a double-track railway 

 on which trains of cars loaded with rock were hauled by engines. The 

 rock was dumped into the ocean by tipping the cars sideways, starting on 

 the shore and gradually raising the wall until its top stood seven to eight 

 feet above ordinary high-tide level. Depths of water as great as thirty feet 

 were crossed, and in such places the width or thickness of the walls exceed- 

 ed one hundred feet. 



During the progress of the work much of the trestle was destroyed 

 by violent wave action. Some of the waves measured thirty feet in height 

 between the crest and trough and frequently work was interrupted by the 

 waves curling over the top of the rails on the trestle, which was at a height 

 of twenty-four to twenty-six feet above low-water level. 



As the jetties were extended the channel depths increased until a maxi- 

 mum depth of thirty-one feet at low water was reached; this channel was 

 fully 300 feet in width; the plans only contemplated a twenty-four-foot low- 

 water depth. , Since the completion of the work in 1899 nothing has been 

 spent for repairs or maintenance, and a least channel depth of twenty-four 

 feet at low water has been constantly maintained. The upper portion of 

 the jetty walls has been battered down by violent seas. At ordinary high 

 tide only the tops of the walls near the shore ends are visible. The outer 

 half of the walls, where the seas were much more violent, are battered down 

 considerably below low-water level. The effect of the work has been to 

 concentrate and direct the currents over the bar, thus maintaining a reason- 

 ably good channel of dimensions suitable to the commerce of the port. 



In the past ten years since the completion of the work the population 

 of Eureka has nearly doubled, and the commerce of the port has increased 

 in a greater ratio. There is no detention to vessels passing in or out, and 

 the whole community, though yet without railroad communication with 

 the outer world, Is exceedingly prosperous. 



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