Whenever friends (Californians and otherwise) carp and complain about the glutting of the Golden State or whine that there’s no space to be alone anymore, I want to whack them with a map.
 Take a look. North of San Francisco stretches a swatch of compelling country, much of it wilderness, sliced by silvery streams that burble at the feet of giant trees, cut by trails and paths and back roads that only masquerade as highways.
 Consider this: Eureka, with a population of 27,800 (about half the size of Palo Alto), is the largest city north of Sacramento!
 Size alone does not a metropolis make. Eureka, a natural shipping center on Humboldt estuary, became the mother city of the north coast in the 1850s. (The settlement’s bay, second largest in the state after San Francisco’s, was named for the German scientist and traveler Baron Alexander von Humboldt.)
 Somewhere I read the criticism of Eureka’s name as “discordant-sounding.” Stuff and nonsense. It’s classic.
 Just more than 200 years ago, Europeans first came ashore on lands home to the Yurok, Hupa, Wiyot and other native tribes. However, it was not until the mid-1850s when “color” was found on Trinity River that gold fever lured a rush of prospectors and settlers, one group headed by James Talbot Ryan.
To that cultured Irishman fell the job of naming a new town site. Reminded of Sicilian scientist Archimedes, he is said to have dubbed it Eureka. The name stuck. (Tradition holds that when the principle of the displacement of bodies immersed in a fluid floated into Archimedes’ mind in the third century B.C., he leapt nude from his bath and rushed into the street yelling, in Greek, “Eureka!” or “I have found it.”
From the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s about 278 miles to Eureka via Highway 101. Since there’s so much to see en route, the driver may arrive as evening lights wink on, gilding the eccentric Victorian houses of Old Town. This is the time and this the place to stop.
Wheeling north through Fortuna and Loleta (of the Cheese Factory) on Highway 101, drivers debouche onto Broadway where traffic stops-and-goes through unappealing outskirts. Nothing in this commercial clutter hints at the handsome Victorian houses standing along side streets such as Hillsdale or at the little shops, art galleries, antiques nooks, B&Bs, and cafés that make strolling through Historic Old Town so seductive.
Gingerbread Gothic mounts to a glorious pinnacle in the Carson Mansion at 143 M Street, supposedly the most often-photographed home in California. Completed in 1886 to the order of redwood king William Carson, it employed a hundred carpenters and artisans who created a fantasy in three stories and 18 rooms, with spacious porches and balconies, arched recesses, soaring staircases, carved panels, stained glass, and outbursts of onyx in the fireplaces.
Carson Mansion (ca. 1884) must be enjoyed from the outside, since it’s the property of the private Ingomar Club. Still, you’ll enjoy the explosion of creamy spinach-colored finials, gables, friezes, parapets, and roofs as pointed as witches’ hats.
Elsewhere throughout town, more than a hundred Victorian houses parade, “painted ladies” in Eastlake, Queen Anne, Carpenter Gothic, and French Empire styles. Most notable among them is the J. Milton Carson House (the Pink Lady, ca. 1889), across the street from the Mansion at 202 M Street, built by William Carson as a wedding present for his son.
Elaborate in Eastlake style at 1406 C Street, An Elegant Victorian Mansion (ca. 1888) ranks among Eureka’s most luxurious inns. (For local accommodations, click on Itinerary.)
A textbook example of the Queen Anne style stands at 904 G Street, built in 1892. The elegant Italianate mode is epitomized by the home at 828 G Street (1882), while that at 933 I Street shows off in Second Empire.(A free guide and walking/driving tour map to local Victorians is available from Eureka’s Chamber of Commerce, 2112 Broadway.)
Happily, the art of Victorian craftsmanship lives! The Blue Ox Millworks Historical Park, where X Street meets the waterfront, specializes in reproduction and custom woodwork. A partially-guided tour of the century-old Blue Ox, only mill of its kind remaining in the United States, is offered daily. Owner Eric Hollenbeck can replicate or restore almost anything.
Carson House sits on the eastern edge of Old Town. From there, the Architectural/Scenic walk is an easy amble through Old Town, west on Second Street and back east on Third Street. Commercial and residential structures from the early 1850s have metamorphosed into sophisticated shops, art galleries, B&Bs, and cafés.
The Clarke Memorial Museum in the handsome old Bank of Eureka building displays one of the finest collections of Indian basketry in the country as well as weapons, old photographs, and ornate, seashell-decorated clothing. Also worth a call is the Humboldt Bay Maritime Museum (around the corner from the Carson Mansion), where shipwrecks, fishing boats, and shipyards are documented in photos, models, and artifacts.
Of the other museums in town, the one not to miss is Fort Humboldt Museum and State Historical Park, which was born in 1853 as the northernmost military post on the coast. (It’s across Highway 101 from the Bayshore Mall, easily reached when entering or leaving town.)
Fort Humboldt features an extensive collection of Indian artifacts and military and pioneer paraphernalia, but to me the most interesting aspect is that Captain Ulysses S. Grant slept here. The future Civil War hero-general and U.S. President (though no one would have predicted either role for him at the time) arrived in 1854 to find the foggy bay a dreary duty. Soon he discovered the whiskey-barrel at Ryan’s Store; about four months later, his resignation from the army was approved. Leaving, he remarked to post surgeon Jonathan Clark, “My day will come; they will hear from me yet.”
To the surprise of no one who lives in Eureka (but to almost everybody else), Eureka recently was chosen number one by John Villani in his book, The 100 Best Small Art Towns in America. Outdoors, the Romano Gabriel Sculpture Garden in Old Town consists of folk art objects created from discarded crates and boards. The town also is recognized for its murals on the walls of many buildings, several by the renowned Duane Flatmo.
Enthusiasts of things artistic will check out Eureka Art and Frame Co., Gallery Dog (hand-crafted ceramics, jewelery, etc.), Humboldt Arts Council, Indian-West Emporium and Gallery (Indian-owned and family-operated), Ink People (gallery, art classes), Many Hands Gallery (Native American baskets, museum reproductions, weather instruments, etc.), and William F. Cody Art and Antiques (American antiques and fine art by locals.
But let’s not be compulsive about culture. Eureka also is a handy hangout for diners, drinkers, and celebrants of the Northern California good life (see Itinerary).