Before the railroads reached Eureka in 1914, the ocean was the highway. The site of Madaket Plaza was the Nelson Steamship Co., where passenger ships brought thousands of people to Eureka beginning in the 1860s. After 1940 it was used by the Tom Lazio Fish Company as a fish processing plant and by Lazio’s Seafood Restaurant through the early 1980s. The Fishermen’s Terminal now stands there, providing commercial fishermen a place to offload catch, sell to fish buyers, load supplies, and perform boat maintenance. The motor vessel Madaket was built on Humboldt Bay in 1910 as a ferry launch carrying mill workers to and from lumber operations across the bay. She served the bay community until 1971, when the Samoa Bridge was built. Since 1972 she has operated from the foot of C Street dock as a harbor cruise vessel under the ownership and operation of the Humboldt Bay Maritime Museum. Lovingly restored, Madaket is the oldest continuously operating passenger vessel in the United States and the only survivor of the ferry boats and passenger ships that once served Humboldt Bay.