And who would not want to visit the ‘Butterfat Palaces’ in ‘Cream City?’ Pretty intriguing, huh? Well, first you need to understand what all this is. ‘Cream City’ is a small town called Ferndale, south of Eureka, across the 1400’ Fernbridge and just off 101 enough to avoid being a haven for all the fast food and gas stations and convenience stores. But close enough for tourists to make this a regular stop on their pilgrimages north. And the ‘Butterfat Palaces’ are the large impressive gingerbreaded Victorian homes built by the many dairy farmers in the area. Sound great? Then, let’s go.
Ferndale started back in the 1850’s when the Shaw Brothers crossed the Eel River by canoe and found a nice level area near the river covered with 6’ tall ferns. Here they build a cabin, cleared the land and began with vegetables and fruit trees. But they soon realized that ranching and cattle would be a much more profitable enterprise. About this time many immigrants from Europe who had been lured to California with the promise of gold in 1849 decided a better, more consistent income could be made off the land and moved to one of the last remaining ‘frontiers’ where they could still get land, Ferndale.
Alongside many Swiss, Italian and Portuguese settlers were the Danes who brought with them their dairy heritage and began to develop creameries. And, also to build their homes in the Victorian style. There are still many here and most have been lovingly restored and well-maintained. Here’s a B&B you can stay in.
Here’s a store on the main street.
But not all of the homes are large. There are some beautiful smaller homes, too.
Since the Ferndale Museum didn’t open until 1:00 on Sunday, we lolled over breakfast and headed over about 10:00. Nice trip with the sun beginning to shine. We drove through to the end of Main Street, parked and began walking down the street. First we spotted the cemetery which we had read was a not-to-be-missed spot. And, they were right. We were most intrigued by the cemetery with all of its walled-in, cemented plots. We were especially intrigued by the grade of the cemetery up the hill. And the operative word is definitely ‘up.’ We had several questions about this and were able to ask the Museum docent later. They have always walled in the plots and they cement over the plot so there is no upkeep. Well, that makes sense. She told us that she will be the last one in her family plot and they will cement it over when she dies. That looks like a long time away, since she’s a very sprightly 90.
Here’s one of the cemented plots.
Oh, yeah, remember those ferns? Well, Seth Shaw, one of the original brothers, built a home in 1854 modeled on the House of Seven Gables, in what is called the Carpenter-Gothic style, and named it Ferndale. This house became the first post office, and the first courthouse but it is now a B&B.
We walked down Main Street which is filled with shoppes and found an interesting old - well, what used to be a blacksmith shop in the front yard of the blacksmith’s home. Here we found some marvelous works of art - all done by blacksmiths. Look at these creative art works. We especially liked the art of this woman. Sharon, the shopkeeper told us that this artist does lots of art shows and, when she’s done, she smashes her pieces flat and carries them that way in here car - saves on space. When she gets to the next art show, she gets them out of her car, tugs and pulls at them while she’s talking to you and, voila, another marvelous work of art. Her pieces are never the same from art show to art show. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, these are all done with chicken wire.
The blacksmith also has another gallery which is for bigger pieces. Wow.
Then the Ferndale Museum. Really neat old museum and it cost only $1.00 - but they do not refuse donations. Here you can find old Victorian rooms: a bedroom, a parlor, a kitchen, an office, along with an old telephone exchange, a barbershop and lots and lots of tools in the annex. Her is a complete blacksmithing area, a lot of milking and creamery apparatus, lots of logging equipment and many other things. We contentedly strolled through the museum and the docent played the player piano for us. Here we also saw a working seismograph which is continually recording. And, yes, Ferndale has had several earthquakes, even getting damaged by the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.
The Butterfat Palaces were amazing but I think that the best creations form Ferndale was the skyscrapering wedding cake that towered 15 1/2 feet high. It had 15 tiers and fed 10,500 people when it was served at the fairgrounds. It leaned a bit but was upright long enough for the Guiness Book of World Records. It was made from 500 lbs of flour, 600 lbs of sugar, 300 lbs of butter, 3000 eggs and 400 lbs of icing.
Interestingly, Legoland in California, has created the Main Street of Ferndale at its theme park. That’s natural since Lego is a Danish company. They went to Ferndale, took hundred’s of photos and used over 1,000,000 Lego bricks to recreate the town.
But, we’re not done. If this is a dairy area, certainly there must be a cheese factory nearby and sure enough, it was in the next town over, Loleta and - right on our way home. Even though it was Sunday, they were in there making the cheese - and we could see this through 3 large viewing windows. Luckily the guy standing next to us was actually a cheese-making equipment salesman and was telling his wife what was going on. Here they are pressing the curds into the stainless steel boxes until they are full. They they ‘put the screws’ on them and squeeze them tightly so that all the liquid is wrung out of those little curds and they form a block. Aging and cutting are next but we didn’t see those processes.
Now to the tasting room. Ummm-good. We tasted several that were delicious and bought some too. Of course.
Our final stop for the day is onto North Spit, right onto the Pacific Ocean Beach. We’ve been here 5 days and have only seen Humboldt Bay. There’s an ocean out there and we walked along this for several miles. We had on long pants, hiking socks and shoes, t-shirts, long-sleeve hiking shirts and nylon jackets. We walked by some who were barefoot, bare-kegged and bare-armed. They must have a different temperature scale than I do.
Can’t end the day without an ocean scape and a windsurfer.
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