The USS Milwaukee was a U.S. Navy cruiser that in 1917 was overcome by wind and waves and beached near the community of Samoa, on the northern peninsula forming Humboldt Bay, about 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Arcata and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Eureka, California. The community was originally named Brownsville after James Henry Brown, who established a dairy farm there in 1859. Brown was reportedly one of the perpetrators of the Indian Island Massacre on Tuluwat Island, where mostly elders, women, and children of the Wiyot tribe were killed by a militia formed by residents of the Eel River Valley in February 1860. The community was renamed Samoa in the 1890s after a similar harbor community in American Samoa.
The North Spit of Humboldt Bay was the site of several federal projects, including the construction of the Humboldt Harbor Light from 1851 to 1892, a prisoner-of-war camp for Native Americans captured during the Bald Hills War in 1862, and the Humboldt Bay Life-Saving Station established in 1878. In 1892, the Vance Lumber Company built a large sawmill there. By 1893, the Eureka and Klamath River Railroad connected the Samoa sawmill and worker housing facilities to the city of Arcata and timberlands near the Mad River. The Samoa mill complex was transferred to Louisiana-Pacific Corporation in 1972, and the last old-growth timber was milled in 1980.
Despite the presence of the Humboldt Harbor Light and the Table Bluff Light, at least 27 vessels ran aground in this area. In January 1917, the cruiser USS Milwaukee grounded while attempting to salvage the submarine USS H-3, which had gone aground on December 15, 1916. The crew of the USS Milwaukee, comprising 421 enlisted sailors and 17 officers, were safely rescued by the Humboldt Bay Life-Saving Station and local volunteers. Attempts to salvage the wreck failed. A storm in November 1918 broke the ship in two, and the hulk was sold in 1919. The history of these incidents underscores the challenges of navigation in the area despite the presence of lighthouses. Read more here and here. Explore more of Samoa Beach here: