Fern Cottage - Ferndale, CA - Official Local Tourism Attractions on Waymarking.com

Fern Cottage Historic District is nominated to the National Register as an exceptional example of a Humboldt County settlement-period farmstead whose architectural components and historic fabric survive totally intact. This 160-acre District, the center-piece of which is the picturesque, 19th-century farmhouse known as Fern Cottage, represents the homeplace of an extensive, family-run ranching operation of dairies, sheep, and cattle. It was, however, the immediate environs of orchards, kitchen gardens, poultry houses, sheds, and barns that provided the Sustenance for this self-sufficient household. Re­taining a high degree of architectural and historic integrity. Fern Cottage is significant for its simple but gracious vernacular architecture which was carefully preserved throughout historic periods of expansion and alteration. Still in the ownership of the heirs of Zipporah and Joseph Russ, who patented the land in 1866 and who occupied a place of substantial influencein the business, agricultural and political life of the area, the District is not only a record of that family's history, but also, through that record, a history of Humboldt County—settlement, land ownership, agricultural development, life styles, and emergence into the modernworld. The District is unparalleled in Humboldt County as a working ranch whose physical and historic character has been preserved so completely that its roots have remained clear and enduring. The interaction of a special natural environment of ocean, river, forest, and bottomland; a built environment of an earlier agrarian period; and the cultural identity of the people who participated in these environments has created, in the Fern Cottage Historic District, a strong and vibrant "sense of place," which makes the District re­markably worthy of recognition on the National Register of Historic Places.

There are 15 contributing buildings and structures that make up Fern Cottage Historic District. The original home was erected in 1866 and further additions were made over the years to its present size. The property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

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