Carlotta is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Humboldt County,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It is located southeast of

Fortuna Fortuna ( la, Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular through the Middle Ages until at ...

, at an elevation of , about east of

US Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...

California State Route 36 State Route 36 (SR 36) is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California that is routed from U.S. Route 101 in Humboldt County to U.S. Route 395 just east of Susanville in Lassen County. The highway passes through Red Bluff, t ...

History

Carlotta is named after Carlotta Vance, daughter of John M. Vance, who laid out the town as a summer resort. The first post office at Carlotta opened in 1903. At that time, it had several cottages, a hotel, store, blacksmith and saloon. Around 1915, a large farm at Carlotta was converted into a branch of Cottage Garden Nurseries, a company headquartered in New York; an orchard and thousands of ornamental plants were installed. Prohibition did in the saloon for a decade, and the depression of the 1930s reduced resort business, but the logging boom following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

resulted in the construction of two large mills and housing for workers surrounding the town. The hotel was essentially unchanged in 1975 which the National Register application form was filed. It was with a kitchen annex which burned down in 1974. The hotel was three stories high with dormers on a hip roof, wood shingle on the upper two stories but board and batten below. A veranda with gingerbread features ran the full length of the face and around the south side. Both ends had brick chimneys on the outside. The building was one of several resorts on the Overland Stage Route, today's Route 36. The hotel was known for popular Sunday dinners, Fourth of July celebrations, races and games; the clientele arrived and departed by train from Eureka. The Vance family sold the town of Carlotta to local investors, including two of the local shopkeepers, in December 1921. The hotel remained under the same ownership from 1921 to 1977 when the heirs sold it, although it was also closed for several years in the 1920s to 1930s until being run by Joe Matteucci starting around 1936. The Matteucci family operated the hotel and restaurant for about 30 years. The Carlotta Hotel was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for significant architecture, little change since construction and a representative of roadside hotels. The town and hotel were sold to Angelo Batini in 1977 who reopened the Carlotta Hotel in 1984. The hotel and restaurant operated until an electrical fire in the mid-1990s destroyed the building. In 2006, the two abandoned mills were still standing, but most of Carlotta's residents commute to Fortuna or Eureka for work.

Geography

The town is adjacent to

Yager Creek Yager Creek is a tributary stream of the Van Duzen River on the north coast of California in Humboldt County, California. It has its source at the confluence of North Fork Yager Creek and Middle Fork Yager Creek Middle or The Middle may refer ...

which joins the Van Duzen slightly downstream from Carlotta. The ZIP Code is 95528. The community is inside

area code 707 Area code 707 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the northwestern part of the U.S. state of California. It was created by a split of area code 415 on March 1, 1959. It serves part of the northern San Francisco ...

. The nearest airport is the

Rohnerville Airport Rohnerville Airport is a public airport located southeast of Fortuna in Humboldt County, California. It is owned by the County of Humboldt. Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, Rohnerv ...

in Fortuna.

Education

Carlotta is the seat of the Cuddeback Union School District,Humboldt County Office of Education
/ref> and home of the Cuddeback School, a public K-8 school located just off Route 36.Cuddeback Union School District
/ref>

Government

In the state legislature, Carlotta is in , and . Federally, Carlotta is in .

Notable residents

Robert F. Fisher lived in Carlotta from 1912 until his death in 1969.California Assembly Concurrent Resolution 151, Chapter 282, 1969 He served as California State Assemblyman for Humboldt County from 1926 to 1932 and was the last surviving serviceman of the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...

in Humboldt County."Golden Wedding To Be Celebrated By Fisher's," ''Eureka Humboldt Standard'', 10 August 1962, Page 8 Resident and convicted sex offender Melvin Just was the subject of a 2000 documentary film, Just, Melvin: Just Evil by James Ronald Whitney, his step grandson. Whitney's sisters, cousins, aunts, extended step family and ambiguously complicit grandmother detail decades of Just's sexual abuse. The film also references Just's long suspected murder of a county social worker sent to check on the family.

References

{{authority control Populated places established in 1903 Unincorporated communities in Humboldt County, California 1903 establishments in California Unincorporated communities in California