The opposite of whining and crying:
History-rich Oberon Grill returns to Old Town
EUREKA -- “It happened on a warm Saturday evening, spring of 1910. I was there.”
So reads the framed letter, dated July 20, 1966, that hangs on the back wall in the Oberon Grill, an upscale new restaurant and bar in Old Town. Written by a Eureka resident named W.J. “Hap” Waters, the letter recalls in vivid detail the fight that took place that warm Saturday evening, now nearly a century past, between Eureka timber man Stanwood Murphy, whose family controlled the town's main industrial power, the Pacific Lumber Co., and an author traveling through town by the name of Jack London.
The fight took place inside the Oberon, Waters writes, a bar and brothel located across from the Vance Hotel. It was a knock-down, drag-out tussle, the letter says, sparked by political debate -- Murphy being described as a “Conservative Republican” and London a “confirmed Socialist.”
Both men spent the following days in the hospital, “licking their wounds,” Waters remembers, but the brawl never made the papers, he adds, “on account of the popularity and prestige of both gentlemen.” ☛ TS History-rich Oberon Grill returns to Old Town