] Fort Dick (

Tolowa The Tolowa people or Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni’ are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethno-linguistic group. Two rancherías (Smith River and Elk Valley) still reside in their traditional territory in northwestern California. Tho ...

: ''Mvn-des-chuu-dvn'') is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), 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 counte ...

(CDP) in rural

Del Norte County, California Del Norte County ( Spanish for "Of The North") is a county located at the far northwest corner of the U.S. state of California, along the Pacific Ocean adjacent to the Oregon border. Its population was 27,743 as of the 2020 census, down from ...

. Fort Dick is around five miles (eight kilometers) north of

Crescent City, California Crescent City ( Tolowa: ''Taa-’at-dvn''; Yurok: ''Kohpey''; Wiyot: ''Daluwagh'') is the only incorporated city in Del Norte County, California, of which it is also the county seat. The city is on the North Coast of California and had a tota ...

, and around south of the California–Oregon state line. Its population is 912 as of the 2020 census, up from 588 from the 2010 census. It is located on the

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...

corridor on the Redwood Coast. A post office was set up in 1917. title.

Etymology

Fort Dick Landing dates back to the Civil War era and was named after a settler's log house "fort" built by Whites to defend from the Indians. In 1888 a shake and shingle mill was moved there and the place renamed Newburg by the Bertsch brothers who owned the mill. With the establishment of the post office in 1896, the old name was revived.

History

Pre-Settler contact

The heavily forested coast territory surrounding Fort Dick was occupied and used by the

and

Yurok The Yurok people are an Algic-speaking Indigenous people of California that has existed along the or "Health-kick-wer-roy" (now known as the Klamath River) and on the Pacific coast, from Trinidad south of the Klamath’s mouth almost to Cresc ...

tribes of Native Americans.

Jedediah Smith's party reaches Lake Earl

Historical records state that a party travelling with

Jedediah Smith Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartography, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western Unit ...

entered the area of Fort Dick and skirted the eastern edge of Lake Earl between June 14 to 16, 1828. During this time, not only did they explore the area, but they made clear contact, including trading and engaging in commerce with the

Indians on the 15th. Jedidiah Smith's party "skirted" the eastern shore of Lake Earl. Since his party was there in 1828, it predates the events that led the settler or farmer who owned the land called "Russell's Prairie" (later Fort Dick) by about twenty-five to thirty years. The camp site of June 14 was on Elk Creek, one-fourth of a mile west of the junction of U.S. 101 and the Elk Valley road. Exactly one month later, while eating breakfast the morning of July 14, 1828, Jedediah's party was attacked by at least one hundred Native American Indians. Everyone in the party except for Jedediah and two companions died in the ambush. They escaped and headed directly to Fort Vancouver.

Shipwrecks near Fort Dick and Crescent City

The coastal waters near Crescent City and north are notoriously treacherous. Over the years, there have been many ships sunk in the ocean close to Fort Dick and Crescent City. * 1850 - ''Paragon'' sunk * 1851 - ''Tarquin'' * 1855 - Steamer ''America'' burned in the harbor at Crescent City en route to Oregon and Washington * 1865 - The ''Steamer Brother Jonathan'' hit an uncharted reef near Point St. George. * 1941 - ''

SS Emidio ''Hammac'' was a steam tank ship built in 1920–1921 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation of Alameda for the United States Shipping Board as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nati ...

'', an oil tanker, was shelled and torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. This was the first ship sunk by the Japanese off the American Pacific coast in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Demographics

The 2020 United States census reported that Fort Dick had a population of 912. The population density was . The racial makeup of Fort Dick was 677 (74.2%)

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 1 (0.1%)

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 103 (11.3%) Native American, 12 (1.3%) Asian, 0 (0.0%)

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, 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 th ...

, 34 (3.7%) from other races, and 85 (9.3%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 73 persons (8.0%). The whole population lived in households. There were 357 households, out of which 71 (19.9%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 185 (51.8%) were married-couple households, 32 (9.0%) were

cohabiting Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not legally married live together as a couple. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become incr ...

couple households, 60 (16.8%) had a female householder with no partner present, and 80 (22.4%) had a male householder with no partner present. 92 households (25.8%) were one person, and 48 (13.4%) were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.55. There were 231

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

(64.7% of all households). The age distribution was 185 people (20.3%) under the age of 18, 44 people (4.8%) aged 18 to 24, 216 people (23.7%) aged 25 to 44, 256 people (28.1%) aged 45 to 64, and 211 people (23.1%) who were 65years of age or older. The median age was 46.0years. For every 100 females, there were 91.6 males. There were 393 housing units at an average density of , of which 357 (90.8%) were occupied. Of these, 291 (81.5%) were owner-occupied, and 66 (18.5%) were occupied by renters.

Government

Fort Dick has very few autonomous governmental services and is largely under the rule of Del Norte County. The remainder of the unincorporated city is subject to various county, state, and federal agencies.

Education

Educational services in Fort Dick are provided by the Del Norte County Unified School District, in conjunction with the Del Norte County Office of Education. At , with over 4000 students, they accomplish this by utilizing an elaborate public school busing network. The many district buses service eleven schools: eight elementary, one middle school, one high school, and one alternative high school. Fort Dick is the home to only one of the district's eight elementary schools. Redwood Elementary is equipped to educate students from the K to 8th grades. The school has a student population of 425 students, with a 21.8 student to teacher ratio. People living in Fort Dick must use education facilities in neighboring Crescent City for anything higher than the elementary school level.

Climate

This region experiences mild and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 71.6 °F. According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Fort Dick has a

warm-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...

( Csb).

References

External links

Tolowa Nation

Yurok Tribe

County of Del Norte website

Historic Book: Redwood National Forest

Del Norte County Tourism and Travel website

Brother Jonathan Shipwreck

Brother Johnathan Cemetery
{{Authority control Census-designated places in California Census-designated places in Del Norte County, California Unincorporated communities in California Unincorporated communities in Del Norte County, California Populated coastal places in California 1862 establishments in California