The nonprofit Ferndale Museum, located in
Ferndale, California
Ferndale is a city in Humboldt County, California, United States. Its population was 1,371 at the 2010 census, down from 1,382 at the 2000 census. The city contains dozens of well-preserved Victorian storefronts and homes. Ferndale is the nor ...
, houses and exhibits artifacts, documents and papers from settlement during the
California Gold Rush to the present including an active Bosch-Omori
seismograph.
The area of collection covers the lower
Eel River Valley
The Eel River (Wiyot: ''Wiya't''; Cahto: ''Taanchow''; Northern Pomo: ''ch'idiyu'') is a major river, about long, of northwestern California. The river and its tributaries form the third largest watershed entirely in California, draining a ru ...
as far south as the
Mattole River Valley
The Mattole, including the Bear River Indians, are a group of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in California. Their traditional lands are along the Mattole River, Mattole and Bear River (Humboldt County), Bear Rivers near C ...
and west to the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...
. Collections include over 8,000
photographs, back issues of the ''Ferndale Enterprise'' newspaper, and family papers spanning 150 years.
History
The museum was founded on September 22, 1979 after a two-year period of renovating an existing building to house its collection. It has always been located on Shaw Street, Ferndale.
Collection
Domestic Exhibits
![Ferndale Museum 20180215 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Ferndale_Museum_20180215_02.jpg)
Historical exhibits include a simulated town street, where visitors can look through windows and doors of what could have been homes and businesses
in late 1800s to early 1900s.
Technology Exhibits
Banks of switchboards, where operators used corded plugs to connect callers, are displayed along with working crank telephones.
Other historical exhibits include nautical history and artifacts from the first oil well drilled (1865) in California at Petrolia.
Economic Foundations (Farming, Ranching, Dairy, Logging, Craftsman) Exhibits
Exhibits include farming,
ranching, and blacksmithing
The lumber and dairy industry are also covered.
Native American Exhibits
Native American artifacts, including baskets from the local Wiyot,
Yurok, Karuk and Hupa, are exhibited along with interpretive information.
Fine Art
Artwork exhibited include paintings from the 1860s by noted portrait painter
Stephen William Shaw
Stephen William Shaw (December 15, 1817 – February 12, 1900) was a California '49er and portrait painter who helped discover and name Humboldt Bay and introduced viticulture to Sonoma County by 1864.
Early life
Stephen W. Shaw was born Dece ...
.
Publications
The museum publishes books, videos, and a research-based newsletter.
Selections from the permanent collection
Bosch-Omori seismograph exhibit
Ferndale resident Joseph Jordan Bognuda (2 October 1889 Vacaville, California - 7 January 1979) became interested in
earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...
s after living through the
1906 San Francisco which caused considerable damage in Ferndale and over the entire Eel River Valley.
Bognuda began a correspondence with Dr. Periz Byerly
and attended lectures at the
University of California at Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
which resulted in the university and the
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey
The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) is a United States federal agency that defines and manages a national coordinate system, providing the foundation for transportation and communication; mapping and charting; and a large number of applications ...
establishing a Ferndale Seismographic Station with a lighter Bosch-Omori
Seismograph than the one in active use at Berkeley at the same time.
![Ferndale Museum 20180215 04](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Ferndale_Museum_20180215_04.jpg)
Omori Seismographs were developed by
Fusakichi Omori
was a pioneer Japanese seismologist, second chairman of seismology at the Imperial University of Tokyo and president of the Japanese Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee. Omori is also known for his observation describing the aftersho ...
, a seismologist at the
Imperial University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
and further refined by J.A. Bosch of
Strasbourg who added a damping mechanism.
Bosch-Omori Seismographs are made of two units, one to detect movement North to South and the other East to West. Each has a pendulum which can pivot, restrained by a flexible wire and have a recording needle which traces on smoked paper, controlled by a weight-powered timepiece.
The seismograph parts were shipped from Berkeley to Ferndale and assembled by Bognuda and Horace Winslow
of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in what is now the Ferndale Fire Department building.
This new Ferndale Station, abbreviated "FER" - located at - became active on January 25, 1933.
During the nearly 30 years FER station was in operation,
newspapers throughout the U.S. contacted it for information about California earthquakes.
[*] With daily observations, Bognuda solved an old puzzle about constantly wiggling traces, by correlating vibrations recorded at FER station to heavy surf on the nearby coast,
[
] an effect now called wave-generated microseism.
[
]![Blacksmithing Demonstration at Ferndale Museum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Blacksmithing_Demonstration_at_Ferndale_Museum.jpg)
The FER station became inactive in 1962 when advances in seismic technology rendered it and several others in the state obsolete.
The Bosch-Omori seismograph was donated to the city of Ferndale by the university,
which moved to the museum in 1981 where it continues to record daily.
Blacksmith shop and forge
A working
blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...
shop
and
forge displays hundreds of items that made up a local blacksmith shop. Live demonstrations of blacksmithing are given in the shop.
The exhibit is a complete 19th century forge (also known as a Smithy or Blacksmith Shop) originally located in
Table Bluff, California
Table Bluff is a locality in Humboldt County, California. It is located adjacent to the Pacific Ocean south of Fields Landing, at an elevation of .
History
The original hotel was built by pioneer Van Aerman in 1852.
A post office operated a ...
. It has over 46 hammers, two
anvils, tongs, rasp, wire brushes,
chisels, gloves, aprons, a coal and/or coke fired forge,
bellows
A bellows or pair of bellows is a device constructed to furnish a strong blast of air. The simplest type consists of a flexible bag comprising a pair of rigid boards with handles joined by flexible leather sides enclosing an approximately airtig ...
, and numerous other tools of the trade. The shop operated from at least 1875 until 1962 under various owners. Also displayed are 80 cattle branding irons.
Governance
Attendance
In 2022, attendance was around 1,300 in addition to a total of approximately 750 museum memberships.
Finances
The museum is nonprofit
and supported privately with memberships, attendance donations, donations, and grants.
Director and board of directors
The museum employs a director who is hired and managed by its board of directors.
The museum contracts services for the original research and publication of its research oriented newsletter.
See also
*
List of museums in the North Coast (California)
The North Coast of California is located on the Pacific coast in between the San Francisco Bay and the Oregon border and includes Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino counties.
This list of North Coast, California museums, defined for ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferndale Museum
History museums in California
Museums in Humboldt County, California
Buildings and structures in Ferndale, California