Arizona republican., 1902-09-17
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Backwoods Country In Which People
 Like to Live.

R. l.. Long, who is back from a two months visit in California. says ne en- joyed his outing better than any vaca- tion he has had for a long time. He stopped longer in San Francisco than anywhere else, saw the festivities ac- | companying the K. of P. conclave and otherwise disposed of about five weeks very pleasantly. He spent some time at Santa Barbara and while there met c. J. Hall, whose health seems to be rapidly improving, though he is still quite i'll. His eyesight is better. but he cannot yet discard his glasses and he still has to walk with a cane. But the most interesting part of his outing was trip of two weeks dura- tion through Humboldt county, over 200 miles north of San Francisco. MT. Long has travelled extensively and al ways likes to visit new places so he thought, as usual, he would get out of ! the beaten path for a season. He went to Eureka by boat, as he was too tired to walk, and that section has not yet been invaded by railroads. Making that place his headquarters he treated himself to several side trips up into the redwood forests and through the agri- cultural sections along the coast Eu- reka is a city of T., 900 inhabitants, and a very pretty one. It was settled fifty years ago and the country surrounding it is a bower of green, dotted by the comfortable homes of prosperous people. In the early days that section was famous for it's agricultural prod ucts. The Humboldt county potato has a reputation of it's own that puts it in the same class with the Rocy Ford watermelon and the Salt River valley orange.
 But of late years potato growing has given away In great measure to the dairy business and that county is now a great source of supply for the butter and cheese connOieurs of San Fran cisco. In manufacturing the principal business is numbering. MT. Long found
 in Eureka two old acqualntances. Ellis Brown, who at one time ran a dry goods business here, has a similar busi- ness there, and T. w. Hine. formerly a leading Phoenix business man. is in charge of a big shingle mill and seem ingly very prosperous. The shingle mills are really the big things to see in that country in the way of industrial enterprises and he spent a couple of weeks at the mills and in the woods be- yond them where the lumber comes from.
 The process of shingle making is in teresting to follow. After the logs are cut up into sixteen-foot lengths by skilled sawyers they are snaked by means of a pony engine to q central point in the wooded district where they are placed on sort of a railroad or Hume constructed of other logs and thoroughly greased. A train of thirty or forty of them are thus mounted and coupled together by a mechanical de- vice when a signal is given by cleo tricity to the power house at the mill and the log train is pulled down the mountain side by a big cable, as on a tramway. the cable by another device being taken back to the upper end of the Hume. Once at the mill the logs are simply cut up and fed to the vari- ous machines that turn out the shin gles in vast quantities. those intended for shipment being later kiln dried and cured.
 While there are several little lumber railroads centering at Eureka there is no commercial line from the outside world and none is particularly cared for. There is good harbor and water transportation is cheaper for all freight purposes. The people seem to be con- tented and making money and those are the chief objects in life. Land in the section devoted to agricultural which is all that needs to be said in explanation of what the owners think of their holdings.