Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Weitchpec Weitchpec, CA

Weitchpec is an unincorporated village and census-designated place in Humboldt County that lies within the Yurok Indian Reservation, 35 miles northeast of Eureka.

Weitchpec is an ancestral Yurok village that long predates European contact; originally known as Weitspus, it was considered a major settlement of the Yurok people, and its Yurok name is Wechpues.

Weitchpec sits at the confluence of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers, where State Routes 96 and 169 meet in the heart of Yurok country.

In the 19th century the settlement was temporarily known as Durkee's Ferry, after Clark W. Durkee, who ran a ferry there in 1851, and as Weitchpec Bar, and a temporary federal post called Camp Strowbridge, later Fort Wool, was established there in 1855.

A post office operated at Weitchpec from 1858 to 1860 and again from 1891 to 1962.

Weitchpec first appeared as a census-designated place in the 2020 census, which counted 112 residents.

Weitchpec has 52 households among 60 housing units, and about 63% of its residents identified as Native American alone in the 2020 census, reflecting its identity as a Yurok tribal community.

The village today has a tribally owned store and gas station, the Yurok Tribal Office and Community Center, and Weitchpec Elementary School, and evening classes in the Yurok language have been offered there.

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake was centered near Weitchpec on February 13, 2012.

Weitchpec lies along the Yurok Reservation's 44-mile stretch of the Klamath River, a reservation whose total population was 1,236 in the 2020 census.