Transcript
HH_Cresent_City_12.12.22_RX
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[00:00:00] I love the atmosphere here. It reminds me of backroom storage rooms for investigation libraries. Oh, Uhhuh . Yeah, that's what this is. This is our research room. We are sitting in the back room of the del Nor County Historical Museum in Crescent City, California. Across from you At the table is Karen Beski, and she's walking me through the ins and outs of the local archive.
[00:00:45] So is this where you keep like everything for the museum? Yeah. Not everything. You can't imagine like those ledger books up there. We have huge ones from the old lumber camps and stuff. Mm. And the real old stores like Hobbs Wall. Hobbs Wall [00:01:00] was the only mill in the town for a while. And so they used to do all the business and they'd have these huge ledgers.
[00:01:07] They'd stand this tall, the books that I'm referring to line the top shelves in the corner of this research room. Dark leather bound and about a foot and a half tall, they could be full of peanut butter and jelly recipes and still feel important.
[00:01:29] I love how tall those books are. These are all the bound newspapers from about 1948 to 1989. Wow. And then we have some other stuff right there that some of the older newspapers, they just go back into 1920. I noticed that, I love that there are five boxes and they're numbered. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . Watch the story behind box number one.
[00:01:52] Brother Jonathan. Actually, that is a good story. Yeah. The brother Jonathan was a, a steamer co, a coastal steamer, [00:02:00] and it went from San Francisco to Vancouver. Carrying passengers and freight. Okay? And in 1865 it San right off the coast here, and Brother Jonathan was the name of the ship. Over 200 people were killed and only 19 people survived.
[00:02:18] It was the reason that they built the St. George Reef Flight house, which is a lighthouse that sits out about seven miles. So the story goes, that it was about 200 tons overloaded and the captain had no say in what happened when they were at port. He was just in charge when it was out of the harbor. He said they were overloading the ship and apparently there was a, a substitute company man that was loading the ship that day.
[00:02:47] A nephew of one of the owners of the line. So they actually did leave. And they came here, which was regular port for them because it was the biggest port between [00:03:00] San Francisco and Portland. So this port was already here. This harbor and the natural shape of our harbor was the reason that Crescent City was founded.
[00:03:10] Tell me about that. Why was Crescent City ever found? Well, it had a natural harbor and they were able to unload ships and they would just unload things, and then they'd go by pack, train inland to the gold builds. And you're talking about the gold fields near San F. Actually, no, it was for the mines and people were hunting for gold up this far, but there really wasn't much gold to be found.
[00:03:37] Basically, the mines here were copper and nickel and chrome. But no, San Francisco, of course, is about 400 miles to our south. So basically the port here would unload people and equipment and take it pack trains up into the hills, up into southern Oregon. What year are we talking about? [00:04:00] We're talking about the 1850s, early 1850s.
[00:04:03] So there's a lot of mining happening. They need a way to transport mm-hmm. the equipment, the people. Yeah. So they decide they're gonna use your natural harbor. Mm-hmm. . And that's how the city is made. Yep. So is that how you get your name? Crescent City? Because of the Crescent. If you see it from up high, the way it's formed is a Crescent Crescent.
[00:04:27] She points to the large map in the middle of the table and turns it in my direction. Her finger lands on a small natural harbor, shapes sort of like a crescent moon facing south in the direction of San Francisco. See cuz the crescent goes this way. And if you look from the hill up at Vista Point, you can see the crescent.
[00:04:49] And that's the natural harbor you're talking about? Mm-hmm. ? Yes. Which also makes us a tsunami prone. And so for Brother Jonathan, you said they put a lighthouse [00:05:00] after the accident Yes. To prevent Yes. Accidents from happening. Yes. So the accident happened because it was too full and I assume it hit rough water, or it hit wind, yeah.
[00:05:12] Yes. So what, what happened was it, it left Crescent City. To go up into to on its way to Oregon and it got a ways about to the Oregon border is what they say. And it was hit by a Northwestern, a storm that came from the northwest and it's really windy. It's really windy here. And so the water gets really choppy and they hit this even with two A side paddle wheels and sails, and it basically stopped them in their track.
[00:05:45] And so he said, turn around. Let's go back to Crescent City. And when they turned around to come back to Crescent City is when they hit what is called an uncharted rock. And the rock, from what I hear from the people who dove [00:06:00] on the site and who are involved in the salvage operation, say it's a pinnacle rock.
[00:06:05] So it's real pointed at the top, and it barely sits under the, uh, surface of the. So it just destroyed the ship. So basically what they're saying is it came down on that pinnacle rock and then they couldn't go anywhere. They were stuck right there, and it just kept bashing the ship down onto this rock and till the keel fell out.
[00:06:29] So does your museum have, I assume that's all paperwork about the. This is the archival things that we have. We have other artifacts here at the museum from the salvage operation. We have, uh, a lot of the galley items because those are the things that really survive down there as the gals, for those of you not up to speed on your ship lingo.
[00:06:51] The galley is the part of the ship where food is cooked and prepared. This room is usually located near the center of the ship, and for that [00:07:00] reason, its contents are often discovered in ship. More than a hundred years later in the main room of this museum, many of these items are on display dishes, plates, cups, utensils, and similar items, fill multiple cabinets beneath a massive, gorgeous lighthouse lamp also on display.
[00:07:22] Looking down at these items, we can appreciate both the amount of time that has passed between then and now, and also some of the ordinary human reality of this tragedy. They were down there for 130 years. They didn't find the ship until the 1990s early, and then they fought with the state of California for a while to have rights to dive on the site, and they finally did settle, and we were able to find 1,208 gold coins, and we actually have one gold coin, a $5 gold piece.
[00:07:58] It's a liberty. [00:08:00] Gold piece. The research company actually gave that coin to us as a gift and prize possession of the museum, one of the prize possessions, because we have so many here. Against the wall of this room. On my right side is a row of numbered white boxes. The second of these says Simply Mills.
[00:08:21] Now for number two, let's just go down these boxes cuz now I'm very curious what, what's the story behind the mills? Well, anytime anybody moves into an area, they gotta build houses. The first thing they do, yeah. Is they start some kind of mill. There was a lot of trees around here that were able to be milled and boy did they go to.
[00:08:41] This was a big lumber town until about the, about 1960s and 1970s. And then the national parks moved in and the mills were pretty much put out of business. But in the 1950s, the county had 54 mills, and those could be big mills. Those could also be [00:09:00] people's personal mills, about 54, which is a lot for a little bitty county like Del Norte.
[00:09:08] Do you know how many mills there are? Zero. In places like this, the tension between industry and conservation is real. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone these days who doesn't want to protect the environment, but in towns like Crescent City, they note the true cost of these initiatives. I ask Karen about the impact of the Redwood State and national.
[00:09:34] Is that what killed all the mills? Yes. We don't talk about it much here because National Park, it is pretty strong up here and we have friends that work for the national Park, but we also have friends that used to be in lumber back in the day. It, it's, people don't really talk about that. It's just, we just move on.
[00:09:54] How important is the national park to the. I would say it's important [00:10:00] because it really helps tourism. I think the biggest boost of tourism is the National Park. Of course we have Battery Point, lighthouse and lighthouses are in, they are a thing you guys might not know because you're from inland. Some lighthouses are in and people flock to see Lighthouses.
[00:10:19] Battery Point was built in 1856. And it took nine months to build and it cost $15,000. It's built on a tidal island, so at high tide you cannot get out there, but at low tide you can walk across the beach and get to the lights. The historical society, the Del Norte County Historical Society, manages and operates the battery point.
[00:10:44] St. George Preservation Society, that's the lighthouse that was built because of the brother Jonathan. They have their own preservation society, but what a lighthouse. And absolutely you have to think of it as a marvel that they could even build [00:11:00] it out where they did. The second lighthouse that Karen is referring to is the St.
[00:11:05] George Reef Lighthouse, six miles off the coast. We went out to see it after this discussion, and it really is a marvel, though we never made it close. It was cold that day and drizzling. And the wind was absolutely rippling across the high rock coastline. We couldn't have attempted to walk there that day.
[00:11:25] Even at low tide. The construction of this lighthouse miles out into the ocean would make an episode in itself and cost 22.7 million in today's money. As you might guess, it was the most expensive light. Ever built in American history, the base beneath the lighthouse was five stories high and the lighthouse added another 90 feet to the height of the structure.
[00:11:53] Part of the reason for this unusual fortress like construction is the fact that waves regularly top five stories [00:12:00] in height, this far out in the ocean. Looking out at St. George from the shore. Thinking of these 60 foot waves. It feels like the loneliest place in the world, but one that undoubtedly saved huge numbers of lives.
[00:12:13] It was decommissioned in 1975 and replaced by a floating lighthouse buoy.
[00:12:23] So box three is the tsunami. Mm-hmm. . I would love to hear this story. Crescent City's tsunami prone because of the way it sits. And that was our largest a tsunami on record. However, the 1964 tsunami was not the big tsunami. The big tsunami was in 1700, January 26th. And the Native Americans have stories about the big wave.
[00:12:53] There's even a word for it. This word is test to us. It's from the toola. [00:13:00] Of the Tallah people, and if you're having a hard time visualizing this word on paper or if I haven't gotten it quite right after all of my efforts to do so, it's spelled like this. T E S T C H A S. The reason they know that there was a big wave in the 17 hundreds is that the Japan had a ghost tsunami.
[00:13:27] And a ghost tsunami is a tsunami without an earthquake. So much like the tooth. Thousand 11 tsunami that came and hit Crescent City and destroyed the harbor. That would've been a ghost tsunami if we hadn't had any warning, but much like that. The tsunami that came from the Cascadia abduction zone hit Japan in 1700, and they were able to see from core samples.
[00:13:52] That it was for sure 1700. And they have a written record of January 26th, which was the [00:14:00] largest tsunami, at least that we know of that hit Crescent City. But the 1964 tsunami, of course, was devastating to the town. It was much closer. Came from Anchorage, Alaska Earthquake, which was about 8.6. On the scale.
[00:14:17] I don't know if it was the Richter Scale that 1964 earthquake known as the Great Alaskan Earthquake or the Good Friday earthquake was actually a 9.2 on the Richter scale, making it the second most powerful earthquake recorded in world history. This was known as a mega thrust earthquake and caused damage and standing waves around the world in places like Japan.
[00:14:45] Texas, Australia and South Africa. 12 of the 131 global victims of this quake and tsunamis were here in Crescent City. How big was the tsunami when it [00:15:00] hit the city? There were five waves and the fourth was the largest and it was about 20 feet over. High tide. Tsunami is not just a big, huge wave, it's more of a wall of water that comes in, and it's not just one either.
[00:15:14] It's a. Of them. So Crescent City had. Been hit with the tsunami as far as the townspeople were concerned. They'd had some evacuations for previous earthquakes that could have caused tsunamis, but really nothing ever hit. Just some water lapping up on Front Street or something like that. And they had evacuated the town on a couple of occasions for tsunami warning.
[00:15:43] So what time was it when the 20 foot wave comes towards the city? The first wave hit at midnight on March 28th. The earthquake was at seven 30 and they had a large tsunami in Anchorage, Alaska as well. Their city was really [00:16:00] devastated by the earthquake and the tsunami, but the tsunami here, the first wave hit at 12 o'clock.
[00:16:06] Do the waves happen one after another pretty quickly? In this case, I'm not really sure. I imagine about 20. Maybe 20 minutes between, but 29 city blocks were destroyed and 11 people were killed. I can't imagine that happening at midnight. I'm sure people were asleep. Were sirens. Mm-hmm. blazing. What was the deal?
[00:16:30] No, no, there weren't sirens blazing. What had originally happened was the sheriff's deputies would go around to all the low lying areas and tell people that a tsunami was coming and they needed to get to safety. But there was three different times that they would drive through and people were skeptical.
[00:16:50] It's, oh, we've been through this before and nothing. Nothing happens. Second Street, it hit first, second, and third street really hard. Second Street was the [00:17:00] main street, and that's where a lot of businesses were, and that's the downtown area. It was devastated. By the tuna. How big of an advance notice would the sheriff's people would've noticed?
[00:17:14] I believe 10:00 PM and the wave hit at 12. So they had about two hour notice. Do you know what they were looking for? They just would go to what they knew were the low lying areas that the water could reach and tell people to evacuate. How would they. That a tsunami was coming, I believe it was the Tsunami Alert Center.
[00:17:39] I believe it was in Anchorage, Alaska. Oh, the same place that had the earthquake and the tsunami. Oh, wow. The original tsunami, the first wave hit them within probably minutes, so they probably called the city in. I think there was an alert put out. If you're out on the water, if you're out on the ocean during a tsunami, all it feels like [00:18:00] is a big swell.
[00:18:02] I assume that there hasn't been a tsunami since then. There have been several tsunamis since then as big, no, this was the one that devastated Crescent City. Is there anything in place now to prevent something from happening if another large tsunami were to take place? You can't prevent it. In 2011, the Fukushima earthquake and the tsunami that came from that actually destroyed our harbor.
[00:18:29] That was from quite a ways away, but it happened at low tide. The tsunami hit us at low tide, but the devastation to the harbor, it was amazing. I can show you some before and after pictures of the harbor, but I don't know. What we really expected from a tsunami that came from that distance, but it was devastating.
[00:18:52] And so we do have a new harbor. It's supposed to be state of the art, a tsunami resistant harbor. [00:19:00] But of course, what does that mean? I don't know until a tsunami is, I won't really know. I mentioned seeing what appeared to be giant concrete. Down at the pier while we were over by the harbor. There are two different things at the pier.
[00:19:15] The ocean's over, of course, on the west side, and the breakwater sits here, down here at the elbow, and down here at the dog leg of the breakwater are what? These big, huge concrete things. One's called a tetrapod, and it, it looks like a jack in a way. Those were put in 1953 actually before the Ts. And then in the seventies, the core of engineers put in what are called dolos, and the dolos are bigger and heavier.
[00:19:50] I don't wanna say they fit together, but they do fit together and it's, it supposed to disperse the energy of the water and [00:20:00] that's their purpose. We also have a dolo outside the visitor's center and we, there's one at the harbor as. And then there's a tetrapod that sits in the city as well, and it was placed on a concrete pad as an example of what was at the harbor.
[00:20:16] And the 64 tsunami actually moved it about eight feet off of its concrete pad. It's been moved and you can see that it's been moved. It was extremely devastating to the town. As you can imagine, losing 11 people. And a part of the city completely destroyed. But Crescent City, they got the moniker of Comeback Town usa.
[00:20:42] And the people here, they were really, we're gonna do it. We can do it. We have to do it. We're going to do it. And so that was a new theme of Crescent City has Comeback Town usa, but it wasn't anything unusual to band together and [00:21:00] decide, okay, we're doing this. There was an instant in 19, in 19 49, 19 50, where they built their own harbor here.
[00:21:10] They built their own pier. They had asked the federal government like six times and they said no. And so the people here said, you know what? We'll do it ourselves. And they did. They built about a hundred thousand dollars harbor with $17,000. And in-kind donations, there was a lot of wood to be had because of the mills Here in 19 49, 19 50, the ladies in town would make sandwiches and bake cakes and take 'em down to the harbor, and the guys were down there just building away.
[00:21:46] It was like a good old fashioned barn raising. But this was a peer raising, so they built the pier, and that's why Citizens Stock is called Citizens Stock because it was actually built by the citizen. So for them to band [00:22:00] together and get through this and rebuild the town, it was something that they were going to do.
[00:22:07] Do you know why the government was denying and the, the story was that there had been peers here before and storms would just wash them out. So they asked the government over and over to help 'em build a dock, and they were always. Being a little town, and I guess there weren't enough people here. I don't know.
[00:22:30] I don't know why. I just know that they said, okay, that's all right with us. We'll just do it ourselves. Now, you wouldn't be able to do that. You'd have to have all the proper permits and everything. So there would be a lot of restrictions, a lot of ways that they wouldn't be able to do it, but they were able to.
[00:22:47] I asked Karen if anything ever voted ashore in Crescent. From other cities affected by the earthquake. I had right of this in other cases and was wondering if anything similar had happened here [00:23:00] in the 2011 tsunami. There were a few things that floated ashore here on the West coasts. I don't know how many there were, but I do know about this little boat.
[00:23:12] So this little boat was found on South Beach and some guys had their truck and they were pulling this boat out of the water and it was at night. And the sheriff's deputies. Went over and said, what are you guys doing? Oh, we're pulling this boat out. I don't know what their intent was as they were pulling the boat out, but the sheriff's department said, if this is a boat from Japan, we have to take it to the impound yard because of invasive species.
[00:23:40] So they took it to the boat yard, and as they were cleaning it up, they noticed that it had some Japanese riding on it. They knew it was probably from the tsunami in. So they took pictures of the riding and they sent an Lori Dangler, who actually wrote this book. She's [00:24:00] professor at H S U, who studies earthquakes and tsunamis, and she sent the picture to somebody in Japan and they said That is a marine biology boat from one of the high.
[00:24:13] Here in Raku Tokata. So they figured out what high school it was from, and the kids at the high school here cleaned up the little boat and raised a lot of money so that they could send the boat home. And as it turned out, they didn't have to send the boat home because they got a lot of truck drivers and some ships take it across and they took it back.
[00:24:39] To where it belongs in this little town that was devastated. And since that time, we've become Sister Cities with this place in Japan that was devastated by the 2011 tsunami. And what makes it special is that this town has also been devastated by a tsunami. So [00:25:00] we, we've become Sister Cities with this little town, and so the kids from the high school here, using the money that they raised to get the boat across, they were able to take a little delegation of high school kids across to Japan.
[00:25:15] And go to this high school and see the Japanese kids. So since that time we've had high school kids come to Del Art County, come to the high school here. We've had different delegations of adults and you know, experts from emergency preparedness. So it's been something else. To see this happen, and it would not have happened if this little boat hadn't floated across.
[00:25:41] This book is called The Extraordinary Voyage of Comma. Comma was the name of this little marine biology boat, and it means Siegel. So this book was written in Japanese and English. And it tells the story of this little boat. That's really cool. Uhhuh , [00:26:00] it's a really good story. It is, yeah. It's on sale here for 9 99.
[00:26:05] Awesome.
[00:26:10] I've never seen a children's book like this one, and each of us bought a copy for one of the kids in our lives, and it's only 9 99. Again, it's called The Extraordinary Voyage of ku. A tsunami boat comes home by Lori Dangler and a Maya Miller perfect bedtime reading material. A true story about international friendships and making the most of bad situations.
[00:26:38] I've put a link to the book in the show notes. It has pictures. And what's funny about the pictures is some of these kids I can recognize, I'll go, oh, that's. Oh, that's so and so because they did such a good job in their illustrations. We also have this book as well. Okay. And it's called Dark Disaster, and this is a first.
[00:26:59] Hand [00:27:00] accounts and pictorial of the 64 tsunami, which shows pictures of the aftermath of the tsunami where houses are actually pushed into the streets. Beachfront Park was actually built after the 64 tsunami, so the core of engineers used the foundations from the destroyed buildings. They used the foundations when they built an eight foot sea wall, which sits out farther than the original seawall did, and they built this park there between the harbor and the.
[00:27:28] I'd like to thank Karen for being with me today and for sharing her time and museum with us in Crescent City. If you're ever in the area, come visit her and her fellow historians in the Del Norte County History Museum. There's lots of great exhibits here in the gigantic lighthouse lamp alone is worth the visit.[00:28:00]
