Orick (formerly, Arekw, Orekw, and Oreq,
Yurok
The Yurok (Karuk language: Yurúkvaarar / Yuru Kyara - "downriver Indian; i.e. Yurok Indian") are an Indigenous people from along the Klamath River and Pacific coast, whose homelands are located in present-day California stretching from Trinidad ...
: '' 'O'rekw '') is a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...
situated on the banks of the
Redwood Creek 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 north of
Eureka
Eureka (often abbreviated as E!, or Σ!) is an intergovernmental organisation for research and development funding and coordination. Eureka is an open platform for international cooperation in innovation. Organisations and companies applying th ...
,
at an elevation of 26 feet (8 m).
The population was 357 at the 2010 census.
Rare minerals
orickite and
coyoteite were discovered at
Coyote Peak near Orick.
History
O'rekw means "mouth of the river" in
Yurok
The Yurok (Karuk language: Yurúkvaarar / Yuru Kyara - "downriver Indian; i.e. Yurok Indian") are an Indigenous people from along the Klamath River and Pacific coast, whose homelands are located in present-day California stretching from Trinidad ...
. Orick evolved from the original word. The Yurok people had 74 known villages in the area, O'rekw was one of five where jumping dances were held. At times spelled Or'eQw, it is important to note that there is no "Q" in the living
Yurok people's alphabet.
Non-native settlers arrived with the
Gold Rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
, beginning in 1850 after the
Josiah Gregg
Josiah Gregg (19 July 1806 – 25 February 1850) was an American merchant, explorer, naturalist, and author of '' Commerce of the Prairies'', about the American Southwest and parts of northern Mexico. He collected many previously undescribed pla ...
expedition discovered
Humboldt Bay
Humboldt Bay is a natural bay and a multi-basin, bar-built coastal lagoon located on the rugged North Coast of California, entirely within Humboldt County, United States. It is the largest protected body of water on the West Coast between Sa ...
. Orick was settled not only for being on the way to mining claims in the
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
, but for five beach
sand mining
Sand mining is the extraction of sand, mainly through an open pit (or sand pit) but sometimes mined from beaches and inland dunes or dredged from ocean and river beds. Sand is often used in manufacturing, for example as an abrasive or in concret ...
claims fronting several miles of beach in the Gold Bluff District. The gold sands did not produce well, and the local gold rush was over by the 1870s.
The first post office at Orick opened in 1887.
The earliest wagons traveled along the beaches, but in 1894 the county - that time covering both the modern Humboldt and
Del Norte counties - finished a wagon road between Eureka and
Crescent City.
Lumbering removed the trees in and around Orick and dairy farmers utilized the flood plain. Until a bridge was built in 1903, Redwood Creek was always crossed by Swan's Ferry.
![Orick Inn 1914](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Orick_Inn_1914.jpg)
Robert Swan was a local rancher and businessman who owned the ferry and the local store, which was bought out by native Eurekan Elmer L. Devlin (August 1, 1877 - ?) who built the original Orick Inn.
Devlin's first building burned down in 1918 and was rebuilt by 1922. It was known for home cooked food, as well as hosting fishermen and notables including opera singer Madame
Ernestine Schumann-Heink
Ernestine Schumann-Heink (15 June 186117 November 1936) was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American operatic dramatic contralto of German Bohemian descent. She was noted for the flexibility and wide range of her voice.
Early life
She was born Ernest ...
, actors
Fred MacMurray
Frederick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an American actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films and a successful television series, in a career that spanned nearly a half-century. His career as a major film le ...
and
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then immigrating to the United States and having a successful Hollywood film career. He wa ...
and President
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
.
In 1924, the
Redwood Highway reached Orick and by the 1930s connected all the way from San Francisco to Oregon. Tourists arrived to see the giant redwoods.
After World War II, Orick became a lumber and timber mill town in response to the post-war demand for timber. The business boomed for about fifteen years until closed by the consolidation of mills in larger towns and foundation of the
Redwood National Park
The Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP) are a complex of one national park and three state parks, cooperatively managed, located in the United States along the coast of northern California. Comprising Redwood National Park (established 1968 ...
.
Elephant Historical Plaque
On October 1, 1927, a circus elephant named "Big Diamond" collapsed five miles north of Orick after freeing ten "Honest Bill Animal Show" trucks mired in the new highway construction. Honest Bill told a highway contractor that the elephant's skin was valuable and that the contractor could keep the money if he would remove the remains. The contractor skinned and buried the elephant, but the skin turned out to be useless. Many years later, the elephants bones were unearthed, and originally misidentified as a mammoth, but newspaper morgues found and repeated the story of Big Diamond's demise. A memorial plaque was placed near where the bones were found in May 1993 by
E Clampus Vitus
The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (ECV) is a fraternal organization dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of Western United States, the American West, especially the history of the Mother Lode#California Mother Lode, Mother ...
Eureka Chapter 101.
Geography
Orick is part of the California Coast Range, lying close to the Pacific Ocean along U.S. 101. It is bisected by Redwood Creek. It is about south of the current northern border of Humboldt County and an equal distance north of the town of
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
.
The Orick/Gold Bluff Beach district runs about along the beach at Orick. Placer mining started in 1852 and continued until the 1880s during which time the district yielded more than $10 million value. Gold here is found in black sands at the beach and east of the beaches; its source may be sorted from materials brought down the
Klamath River
The Klamath River (Karuk: ''Ishkêesh'', Klamath: ''Koke'', Yurok: ''Hehlkeek 'We-Roy'') flows through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second larges ...
which arrives in the Pacific twenty miles north of Orick.
Redwood Creek Flood Control Project- Humboldt County
Floods in 1950, 1953, 1955 and 1964 resulted in channel enlargement, excavation and the construction of earthen levees along each side of the lower Redwood Creek (Humboldt County) by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during 1966 to 1968 to protect the community of Orick. An error was made within the construction. Fault was admitted shortly after the completion. Observation shows this design flaw invades the Redwood Creek estuary. This unwarranted annexation causes extreme damage to the ecosystem. The estuary sits at the western end of the flawed levee system known as the Redwood Creek Flood Control Project- Humboldt County (RCFCP- Humboldt County).The system is maintained by Humboldt County which determined that a general investigation is needed by USACE to consider reworking the system to a more natural condition while retaining flood control benefits.
Climate
This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 71.6 °F. According to the
Köppen Climate Classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
system, Orick has a
warm-summer Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps. Being situated a couple of miles inland surrounded by hills, Orick has somewhat milder summer days than expected for areas on the
North Coast North Coast or Northcoast may refer to :
Antigua and Barbuda
* Major Division of North Coast, a census division in Saint John Parish
Australia
*New South Wales North Coast, a region
Canada
*The British Columbia Coast, primarily the communiti ...
with on average 0.7 days above and average September highs of . Although never more severe than ; there are on average 38 air frosts per season.
[Weatherbase - Orick, CA](_blank)
/ref> There is on average of precipitation in a year, making it a very wet mediterranean climate.
Demographics
The 2010 United States Census
The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...
reported that Orick had a population of 357. The population density was . The racial makeup of Orick was 288 (80.7%) White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
, 0 (0.0%) African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, 39 (10.9%) Native American, 0 (0.0%) Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, 3 (0.8%) Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
, 6 (1.7%) from other races
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
, and 21 (5.9%) from two or more races. Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
or Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
of any race were 20 persons (5.6%).
The Census reported that 346 people (96.9% of the population) lived in households, 11 (3.1%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 0 (0%) were institutionalized.
There were 166 households, out of which 33 (19.9%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 60 (36.1%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 10 (6.0%) had a female householder with no husband present, 13 (7.8%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 20 (12.0%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 1 (0.6%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 65 households (39.2%) were made up of individuals, and 19 (11.4%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.08. There were 83 families
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideall ...
(50.0% of all households); the average family size was 2.69.
The population's ages were spread out, with 60 people (16.8%) under the age of 18, 23 people (6.4%) aged 18 to 24, 84 people (23.5%) aged 25 to 44, 125 people (35.0%) aged 45 to 64, and 65 people (18.2%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 48.1 years. For every 100 females, there were 113.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 116.8 males.
There were 197 housing units at an average density of , of which 166 were occupied, of which 89 (53.6%) were owner-occupied, and 77 (46.4%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.2%; the rental vacancy rate was 8.2%. 198 people (55.5% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 148 people (41.5%) lived in rental housing units.
These numbers have decreased almost by half in the last six years. The current estimated population is under 185 residents.
Economy
Orick is surrounded by state and national parks and is on several trail networks in the Redwood National and State Parks
The Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP) are a complex of one national park and three state parks, cooperatively managed, located in the United States along the coast of northern California. Comprising Redwood National Park (established 1968 ...
, as well as the Redwood Creek Estuary Trail, the Humboldt Lagoons trails, the California Coastal Trail
The California Coastal Trail, or CCT, is an environmental project by the California Coastal Conservancy, an organization developed to enhance coastal resources and promote access to the shore in 2001.
The trail is designed to connect the enti ...
, and the Pacific Coast Bicycle Route.
Tourists visit in both the dry and the wet seasons with attendance averaging 35,000 a month (low of 13,631 February, high of 70,215 August) in 2010. About 20 percent seek local lodging by camping or lodging in the parks.
Parks and recreation
Redwood National Park Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center is located on US Highway 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 ...
just before reaching Orick, California. The Redwood National Park Southern Operation Center (SOC) is located directly in town on US Highway 101 across the road from the local market and US Post Office.
Government
In the state legislature, Orick is in , and .
Federally, it is in .
Education
Orick is served by the Orick Elementary School with grades K-8, but faces closure regularly due to low enrollment.
Infrastructure
Orick is served by U.S. Highway 101 and smaller county roads.
Fire service began in 1955 and water service in 1976; both are maintained by the Orick Community Services District over about Fire and emergency medical service covers an area of . Water is provided to the Redwood National Park Visitors’ Center by the district. Orick Community Hall is maintained by the district.
In popular culture
The community was featured in the PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
video game ''Resistance 2
''Resistance 2'' is a 2008 science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, ...
''.
The town is briefly seen in the 2018 film '' Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'', a few miles away from the Lockwood Estate where the auction of the last dinosaurs takes place.
See also
*Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park is a state park, located in Humboldt County, California, near the town of Orick and 50 miles (80 km) north of Eureka. The 14,000 acre (57 km²) park is a coastal sanctuary for old-growth Coast Redw ...
*
* Orick Peanut
References
{{authority control
Census-designated places in Humboldt County, California
Census-designated places in California
Populated coastal places in California