In 1858, a Yurok agent stood in a saloon and overheard men planning genocide. A large armed party was moving downriver from Weaverville toward Hupa lands. The agent managed to turn them back, but the Hupa understood what was coming. They began gathering weapons. They also did something unexpected: they petitioned for a fort. On December 4, 1859, Captain Edmund Underwood and 56 men of the 4th US Infantry established Fort Gaston in the redwood forests of the Hoopa Valley, on the west bank of the Trinity River. The fort would spend three decades trying to keep two groups of people from killing each other.
Fort Gaston occupied an impossible position from its first day. As part of the Humboldt Military District, it was charged with controlling the Hupa while simultaneously protecting them from hostile white settlers. The post took its name from 2nd Lieutenant William Gaston of the First Dragoons, killed in 1858 during the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War. The army suspected the Hupa of aiding neighboring tribes in attacks on settlers and ambushes of mail carriers during what became known as the Bald Hills War. The Hupa denied everything. They refused to provide guides until 1862, and when they finally did, soldiers somehow never managed to catch the enemy. The Hupa were secretly warning them.
While the nation tore itself apart back east, California Volunteer Infantry companies rotated through Fort Gaston in grim succession. Company K arrived in December 1861. Companies H, F, and I followed in 1862. The action reports read like dispatches from a forgotten war: skirmishes at Weaversville Crossing, Redwood, Little River, Oak Camp. In June 1863, Companies B and C of the California Volunteer Mountaineers took over. On Christmas Day 1863, they cornered Indians in several log buildings. The defenders fired from rifle ports. The army responded with howitzers. By nightfall the buildings were ruins, but darkness allowed escape. Peace with the Hupa came on August 12, 1864.
The confusion started immediately. From 1866 to 1867, the post was officially designated Camp Gaston, not to be confused with the other Camp Gaston on the Colorado River, also named after Lieutenant William Gaston, established in April 1859 during the Mohave War. In January 1866, it became Camp Gaston. By April 1867, it was Fort Gaston again. The name changes reflected bureaucratic uncertainty about the post's status and importance. The fort was neither a permanent installation nor a temporary camp. It existed in the same ambiguous space as the territory it patrolled.
Fort Gaston was finally abandoned in June 1892. The military turned the property over to the Department of the Interior, and it became part of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. The Hupa had outlasted their overseers. In a twist that spoke to the area's remoteness, the U.S. Fish Commission built a salmon hatchery at Fort Gaston in 1889, then abandoned it in 1898 because the site was too inaccessible. The same isolation that made the valley difficult to govern also protected it. Today the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation is the largest in California.
Nothing visible remains of Fort Gaston today. The redwoods have reclaimed the parade ground where soldiers once drilled. The blockhouse the settlers demanded is gone. The rifle ports that flashed on Christmas Day 1863 are memories. But the valley the fort was built to control is still Hupa land, administered by the Hupa people. The Trinity River still flows toward the Klamath. The location that was once a military outpost in Indian country is now the heart of the largest Indian reservation in California. History has a way of turning forts into footnotes.
Located at 41.05N, 123.67W in the Hoopa Valley, Northern California. Best viewed from 4,000-6,000 feet AGL. The valley runs along the Trinity River, surrounded by dense redwood forest. No structures remain of the original fort. The Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation now occupies the area. Look for the distinctive valley shape and the Trinity River's west bank where the fort once stood. Nearest airports: Murray Field (EKA/KEKA) in Eureka approximately 45nm west, Arcata-Eureka Airport (ACV/KACV) approximately 50nm northwest.