Recalling 150 years of Arcata

Arcata marks its 150th anniversary this year and to celebrate, The Eureka Reporter will examine the local people who have made it the colorful community it is today. On the second Wednesday of each month throughout this year, an Arcata family’s story will be told. The seventh of the 12-part series continues today, with the Pontoni famiy of Arcata. What better way to examine Arcata’s history than to talk to the people who have lived there? Some families have been around for as long as six generations, while others may have been in Arcata for a mere three. Although each family differs from the next, each one shares a common bond — growing up local.

Although the Pontoni family no longer keeps a ranch in their Arcata hometown, the family’s legacy of progressive farming lives on.

Martin and Helen — with help from children Beverley, Linda and Ron — took over from their parents the farming business out in the Arcata Bottoms, the family’s home for five generations.

Martin is actually Martin Jr., despite being about to turn 97 Saturday, to his farmer father, who was a first-generation Arcata resident from Switzerland.

His father gained praise from the San Francisco Examiner for his thrift and cropping and feeding techniques in a 1923 Sunday edition of the paper:

“In the days when so much complaint is heard about the difficulty of getting a start in farming — or any other business — it is encouraging to consider the example of Martin Pontoni, Humboldt dairyman, who came to this country without a dollar and now owns one of the best butter farms in the state — every acre and cow honestly earned.”

Martin Sr. was just 15 years old when he came to America in 1891. He worked at a dairy in Fernbridge before moving to Arcata two years later.

He worked on the dairy of J.W. Coppini for 10 years before saving enough money to buy his own land by the mouth of the Mad River.

Martin Jr. took after his father and worked the farm from the 1940s until 1985, when he was in his late 70s.

The details of his long life can get blurry for Martin Jr., but 87-year-old Helen jumps in to remind him when she can.

“All he did was work,” Helen recalled of their youth. She looked up at Martin and said, “Remember, you used to always go by on the tractor.”

The couple went to Arcata High School together and lived a mere mile apart.

Both said they never thought of leaving their hometown.

“I don’t know why,” Martin Jr. said. “I haven’t been anywhere else.”

Beverley said her parents were so tied to their work on the ranch they shared that they didn’t take their first vacation until 1966 — when Martin Jr. was in his 50s.

Not as strict about vacations, Beverley said she recently took a trip to Cimalmotto, Switzerland, to see where her grandfather grew up.

“It’s fun to go visit, but we understand why he wanted to come to America,” she said, citing harsh winters and rugged mountainsides as not being particularly favorable farming conditions.

The lush fields of the Arcata Bottoms remind the Pontonis of the days when they were among the most successful farmers in Humboldt County.

Although many of their farming friends and neighbors have passed on, they said they will continue to cherish the lifetime of doing their lives’ work in their hometown of Arcata.