Fieldbrook (formerly Bokman's Prairie and Buckman's Prairie) 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 ...

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-northeast of

Arcata Arcata (; Wiyot: ''Goudi’ni''; Yurok: ''Oket'oh'') is a city adjacent to the Arcata Bay (northern) portion of Humboldt Bay in Humboldt County, California, United States. At the 2020 census, Arcata's population was 18,857. Arcata was first ...

, at an elevation of . The population was 860 following the 2010 census.

Geography

Fieldbrook is located on California's

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 ...

, approximately north of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and south of the

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

state line. Located on the edge of dense

redwood forest ''Sequoia sempervirens'' ()''Sunset Western Garden Book,'' 1995:606–607 is the sole living species of the genus '' Sequoia'' in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly treated in Taxodiaceae). Common names include coast redwood, coastal ...

, the area was once home to thriving

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

companies. Fieldbrook is east of the larger, unincorporated, seaside town of McKinleyville and the Arcata-Eureka Airport, approximately northeast of the harbor city of

, and about north of the city 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 ...

, the Humboldt

County seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

. Fieldbrook is at the northern edge of the McKinleyville-Arcata-Eureka-Fortuna corridor along

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 ...

, where about eighty percent of Humboldt County's population lives and most of its businesses are located. The ZIP Code is 95519. 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 ...

. Fieldbrook is located at the right-angle bend where Murray Road becomes Fieldbrook Road. In the mid-1990s, Fieldbrook was a stereotypical sleepy country hamlet, with junk cars sitting in weedy yards along the main road in one block and

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

s grazing alongside a church in the next. With the decline of the local timber industry, the increase of

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...

ing professionals, and the emergence of the North Coast as a

retirement Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

destination, Fieldbrook with its mild weather (summer temperatures seldom exceed and winter nights rarely drop below has undergone

gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...

. Sprawling ranch-style (single-story) homes on isolated lots wedged between timber tracts are selling for $500,000, and at least one timber tract has become a gated community. The few blocks of paved and unpaved roads that comprise Fieldbrook property include modest homes, an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

and two churches, as well as a general store, a

winery A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, ...

and an apple orchard that host public events. Larger residences whose owners identify with the Fieldbrook community continue south along Fieldbrook Road as it heads inland and uphill to the small city of Blue Lake (population 1,200) at the foot of the Coast Range. The road connects there with State Highway 299, a winding route that crosses the mountains and connects with

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Califor ...

in Redding, about east. Fieldbrook is on the north bank of the Mad River, which flows into 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 continen ...

. Although the Mad River supplies the water to much of Humboldt County's population, the small population does not have a significant impact on the river's flow. The north side of Fieldbrook Road is second-growth (

coppice Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeated ...

, multiple thinner trunks sprouting from the stumps of harvested trees) redwood forest with the occasional clearing for a house, and the logging rules allow the forest canopy to maintain a height of . A narrow zone adjacent to the road is maintained as an unlogged buffer, presenting the illusion of virgin forest to tourists. On the north side of the buffer, in any given year the majority of the timber tracts have been growing for at least seven years, comprising a wilderness if not exactly parkland. The region is rich with wildlife and animals like

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

elk The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

es,

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of ...

s, and the occasional

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...

are found.

History

A post office operated in Fieldbrook from 1902 to 1932. In the late 1800s to early 1900s, much of Fieldbrook was owned by lumber companies. Railroad lines ran through Fieldbrook to the Humboldt Bay.

Education

Fieldbrook is the seat of the Fieldbrook Elementary School District,Humboldt County Office of Education
/ref> and home of the Fieldbrook School, a public K-8 school.Fieldbrook School
/ref>

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 Fieldbrook had a population of 859. The population density was . The racial makeup of Fieldbrook was 763 (88.8%)

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 ...

, 4 (0.5%)

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 ...

, 19 (2.2%) Native American, 5 (0.6%)

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 ...

, 0 (0.0%)

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 ...

, 14 (1.6%) 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 54 (6.3%) from two or more races. 51 persons (5.9%) were

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 ...

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. The Census reported that 859 people (100% of the population) lived in households, with 0 (0%) living institutionalized or in non-institutionalized group quarters. There were 347 households, out of which 90 (25.9%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 190 (54.8%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 26 (7.5%) had a female householder with no husband present, 16 (4.6%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 27 (7.8%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 8 (2.3%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 72 households (20.7%) were made up of single individuals, and 23 of these (6.6%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.48. There were 232

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 ...

(66.9% of all households); the average family size was 2.87. The population was spread out, with 162 people (18.9%) under the age of 18, 55 people (6.4%) aged 18 to 24, 190 people (22.1%) aged 25 to 44, 351 people (40.9%) aged 45 to 64, and 101 people (11.8%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 47.0 years. For every 100 females of any age, there were 100.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.9 males. There were 377 housing units at an average density of 36.0 per square miles (13.9/km²), of which 347 were occupied, 281 (81.0%) were owner-occupied, and 66 (19.0%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.4%; the rental vacancy rate was 6.8%. 710 people (82.7% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 149 people (17.3%) lived in rental housing units.

Government

In the

state legislature A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Sta ...

, Fieldbrook is in , and . Federally, Fieldbrook is in

California's 2nd congressional district California's 2nd congressional district is a U.S. congressional district in California. Jared Huffman, a Democrat, has represented the district since January 2013. Currently, it encompasses the North Coast region and adjacent areas of the st ...

, represented by

Jared Huffman Jared William Huffman (born February 18, 1964) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for California's 2nd congressional district since 2013. He is a member of the Democratic Party. From 2006 to 2012, Huffman was ...

References