ARCATA

Westernization

The Spaniards claimed the area but never settled it; the first permanent settlements occurred after California was admitted to the Union. Arcata was first settled as Union in 1850. Union was created as a port, and reprovisioning center for the gold mines in the Klamath, Trinity, and Salmon mountains to the east, and was very briefly the county seat during this period. It was slightly closer to the mines than Eureka, which gave Union an early advantage. What was to become the first significant town on Humboldt Bay began as Union Company employees laid out the plaza and first city streets in the Spring of 1850. By later in the 1850s redwood timber replaced the depleted gold fields as the economic driver for the region and Eureka became the principal city on the bay due to its possession of the better harbor, gaining it the county seat by the end of the decade.

History and images of early settler families in Arcata are cataloged in the Susie Baker Fountain Papers and True Hoyle Collection at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. These collections also include images of important social events in the Arcata area, such as graduations at Arcata High School as early as 1910, as well as images of social gatherings at the Arcata plaza before the statue of William McKinley was erected in the center from 1906 until its relocation in 2019.

Recent history

Since the 1970s, Arcata has been home to multiple major manufacturing companies, specifically in the outdoor industry. Yakima Racks, a major car racks and bike accessories company, was headquartered in Arcata from 1979 to 2005, when the company moved to Oregon. Moonstone Mountaineering, founded out of a van at Moonstone Beach in 1977, was a major innovator in down sleeping bags, waterproof gear, and fleece before being bought and closed by Columbia Sportswear in 2006. Kokatat, founded as Blue Puma in 1971 and renamed in 1986, is a major watersports clothing company headquartered in Arcata that specializes in waterproof apparel for kayaking, and outfits the US Coast Guard, Navy SEALs, and SWCC, US watersports teams for 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics and the movie The Bodyguard. Wing Inflatables, founded in Arcata in 1991, manufactures polyurethane Inflatables boats used by riverboat tours, as well Navy SEALs, Coast Guard, NOAA, and NASA.

In August 1989, the voters of Arcata passed the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Act, prohibiting work on nuclear weapons, and the storage or transportation of nuclear weapons within the city limits. The ordinance also minimized the city's contracts for and purchases of the products and services of nuclear weapons contractors. On March 17, 2010, the Arcata city council voted for final passage of an unlawful-panhandling ordinance (Ordinance No. 1399). Among other restrictions, it forbids panhandling within 20 feet (6 m) of any business.