The Humboldt County Department of Public Works had an extensive collection of historical aerial photographs of areas within Humboldt County for various years from 1931 to 2002. Starting in 2005, county-wide aerial imagery became available in digital format at the Humboldt GIS Portal. Aerial photographs are collected by aircraft and provide a “birds eye” view of the ground surface. These photographs are a valuable resource for documenting changes to landscapes and community development. The Humboldt County Aerial Photograph Collection contains over 40,000 hard-copy photographs and map indexes.
Efforts to compile the Public Works’ collection of hard-copy aerial photographs and other historical materials were led by Don Tuttle, who began working for Public Works in 1972, retired in 2002, and continued working on special projects and sharing his vast historical knowledge until his death in 2020. Don was highly regarded for being kind, good-natured, practical, and ready to help research questions about Humboldt County history. Don had a passion for searching old maps, photographs, newspapers, and documents to discover clues for determining when and where certain events happened. Andrea Tuttle established a fund at Humboldt Area Foundation to support the archiving and digitizing of the historical materials collected by Don during his tenure with the county and making these materials available to the public at no charge. Cal Poly Humboldt Library is thankful to the Tuttle Family for their generosity of making the collection publically available.
The Humboldt County Aerial Photograph Collection is in process of being uploaded to this digital archival. Look for a user manual and additional files in the near future. Please contact Carly at Cal Poly Humboldt Special Collections carly.marino@humboldt.edu with any questions about the collection.