Garberville, California

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Garberville is a small unincorporated town in southern Humboldt County, California, United States. The population was 2,403 at the 2000 census. It is approximately 200 miles north of San Francisco, California, and within a fifteen minute drive to Humboldt Redwoods State Park and a sixty minute drive to Eureka, the county seat.

The first settlers arrived in 1853 to what was then named "Dogtown." The town was later self-named by its postmaster at the time, Jacob C. Garber[1].

Garberville is the primary town in the area known as the Mateel Region, comprised of parts of the Mattole and Eel River watersheds in southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties.

Because to the distance of Garberville and other regional communities from their respective county seats of Eureka and Ukiah, there is a notable lack of mass transportation and other public services. A group of local residents once attempted to qualify a "Sequoia County" initiative to secede from both Humboldt and Mendocino with Garberville as the new county seat, although the campaign ended after they failed to gather enough signatures. Bioregional efforts continue with the recent formation of the Sequoia County Greens^[1] as a local Green Party chapter, which meets regularly in Garberville.

There was also once an attempt to incorporate Garberville as a city^[2], which was thwarted when county supervisors declined to take the first step with the formation of a Municipal Advisory Committee due to concerns over the associated costs.

Garberville is home to both weekly newspapers in the Mateel Region, locally-owned The Independent and Redwood Times, run by Media News Group as a sister publication of the daily Times-Standard. The town also boasts the only movie house in the area, the Art-Deco-style single screen Garberville Theatre. Garberville's town square hosts a Farmers' Market every Friday in summer and early fall. The Garberville Branch of the Humboldt County Public Library provides the only such service in the Mateel Region.

Garberville has the reputation^[3] as the heart of the marijuana-growing region of the Emerald Triangle and much of the local economy, both commercial and non-profit, is allegedly supported by direct or indirect income from marijuana exports. The perception of decreased emphasis on marijuana-related prosecutions by District Attorney Paul Gallegos, especially in light of the more permissive cultivation and possession guidelines for medical marijuana issued by his office and later codified by county supervisors, is perceived by some to have led to the lopsided results in his favor from Garberville-area voters in his hotly contested June 2006 re-election victory^[4]. Similar results have been witnessed in the results for other left-leaning candidates in recent elections, leading to the general perception of Garberville and Southern Humboldt as politically progressive.

[edit] Geography

Garberville is located at 40°06′01″N, 123°47′38″W. Its climate is characterized by cold, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. The town is streched out in a small forested valley along Highway 101, at an elevation of 479 feet, although the nearby King's Peak rises to 4,087 feet.