Ferndale is a city in Humboldt County, California, United States. Its population was 1,371 at the 2010 census, down from 1,382 at the 2000 census. The city contains dozens of well-preserved Victorian storefronts and homes. Ferndale is the northern gateway to California’s Lost Coast and the city, which is sited upon the edge of a broad plain near the mouth of the Eel River, is with located close the extensive preserves of coast redwood forests.

Before American settlement, Ferndale was a glade of giant ferns reaching exceeding six feet (1.8 m), surrounded by alder, willow, Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, coast redwood, swampy land, and windswept prairies. The Place was populated by the southern Wiyot people, and centered along the Eel River, where they caught lamprey eels, salmon and sturgeon in iris leaf fish nets, collected shellfish along the river and at its mouth, while cultivating single-handedly a California species of tobacco. The town was normal in 1852 from unity by Willard Allard, Seth Louis Shaw, and his brother, noted American painter Stephen W. Shaw.

In August 1852, Allard and the Shaw brothers borrowed a canoe from the Wiyots in the Table Bluff Place and rowed it across the Eel and occurring Francis Creek to reach with their supplies to the approximate vicinity of Main and Shaw streets. In September 1852, they cleared a five-acre Place of ferns and began building a cabin close the base of the Wildcat Road even even if Allard was sick with ague. By January 1853, 12 men were energetic in the Shaws’ cabin including Seth Kinman, who provided the group in the proclaim of meat, and Joseph Russ (1825–1886), whose sophisticated holdings included the Fern Cottage Historic District. About this time, Stephen Shaw painted the portrait of Wiyot elder Kiwelattah (or Ki-we-lah-tah) and kept a detailed journal of two years of maddening to accumulate plants in cold coastal fog.

Seth Shaw settled in the area now marked by Main and Lewis streets where he began construction of the Gothic Revival style Shaw House on his property in 1854. The Shaw House served as the area’s first polling place in 1854, post office in 1860 and courthouse in 1863. The voting registers for Humboldt County and Ferndale are upon file for viewing in the Andrew Genzoli Collection at Humboldt State University, starting in 1888. Seth Shaw was justice of the goodwill and postmaster, and his house served for many gatherings although it was not finished until 1866. After having been away from the area for two years, Stephen Shaw sold his holdings in 1856 to Welsh-born Francis Francis (1818–1877) who later usual the city’s water system through pipes laid initially in 1875.