The Jacoby Building at 791 Eighth Street is the oldest commercial building in Arcata, constructed in 1857 by merchant Garret Jacoby during the Gold Rush era when the town served as a supply hub for inland mining camps. It's a handsome two-story brick structure on the northeast corner of the Plaza — easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking at, but worth a moment's attention once you do.
The building is a California Historical Landmark and one of the few surviving examples of mid-nineteenth-century commercial architecture in Humboldt County. The ground floor has housed various businesses over the decades; it currently contains retail and food tenants. If you're interested in the North Coast's settlement history, the building is a tangible connection to the period before redwood logging reshaped the economy.