The Eureka Inn: Gateway to the Redwoods

When the Redwood Highway opened between Eureka and San Francisco in nineteen twenty-two, the city of Eureka built a hotel to match the occasion. The Eureka Inn opened the same year, a four-story Tudor Revival landmark designed by Frederick Whitton that fills an entire city block. Its ninety-three thousand square feet of stucco and half-timbering were intended to signal that the North Coast was ready for the automobile age.

The hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen eighty-two. Over the decades its guest list has included Ronald Reagan, Bobby Kennedy, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Plant. For travelers heading north to the redwood forests, it was the logical first stop on the new highway, and it remains the architectural anchor of downtown Eureka today.