Eureka sits on the shore of Humboldt Bay, 275 miles north of San Francisco along Highway 101, surrounded by some of the tallest trees on earth. Founded in 1850 as a shipping hub for the Trinity gold mines, the city grew into a prosperous Victorian port town — and the evidence is everywhere. Eureka has one of the finest collections of Victorian architecture on the West Coast, concentrated in its Old Town, where ornate painted houses line streets full of galleries, restaurants, and independent shops.
The undisputed architectural showpiece is the Carson Mansion — a fantastically ornate Queen Anne Victorian on M Street, built in 1886 for lumber baron William Carson using eighteen types of wood from his own mills. The Clarke Historical Museum in Old Town covers the region's history from the indigenous Wiyot through the Victorian timber boom, and the Morris Graves Museum of Art occupies the handsome 1902 Carnegie library. For something more unusual, the Blue Ox Millworks is a working Victorian mill producing ornamental woodwork on antique machinery and offering daily tours.
Beyond the architecture, the surrounding landscape is extraordinary. Giant redwood groves, an untouched Pacific coastline, and six wild and scenic rivers make the Eureka area a destination for hikers, kayakers, surfers, birdwatchers, and anglers. Humboldt Bay itself is one of California's largest coastal bays and a critical Pacific Flyway stopover — the National Wildlife Refuge at its southern end protects the best of its wetlands. Sequoia Park, on W Street, combines a free zoo with a grove of old-growth coast redwoods accessible from the city streets.
On the first Saturday of each month, Arts Alive! brings locals and visitors to Old Town to browse local art and specialty shops. In late summer, Blues by the Bay draws world-class musicians to Halvorsen Park for a weekend festival on the waterfront. Lost Coast Brewery on 4th Street is the city's best-known taproom. For the redwood forests, day trips north and south of the city reach some of the tallest trees on earth within an hour's drive.