Napoleon Bonaparte Bever & Horse Team, c. 1902. Photograph of Napoleon Bonaparte Bever with a three-horse team hauling lumber-filled railroad cars from the Mendocino Lumber Mill located on Big River Flat to the Incline where the cars would be pulled up the bluff and out to the Shipping Point. Behind Mr. Bever is the mill and its associated buildings, including the ninety-foot high, million-brick chimney that [...]
One of this year’s Mendocino Film Festival selections, “Three Minutes: A Lengthening,” is a memorial to lives long gone and an interesting approach to film making. Director Bianca Stigter takes a three-minute reel of faded 16mm color home movie footage shot in 1938 in the Jewish quarter of Nasielsk, Poland, and looks at it very closely. She identifies the people in it, and explores the Jewish [...]
May 22, 1878 - Fred Kunkel produced 70,000 bricks at his new Mendocino brick yard. The brick maker pressed locally-sourced clay into wooden molds by hand to form the bricks. The process of manufacturing a kiln full of bricks was a months-long endeavor, and the Beacon closely followed Fred's progress. Mendocino Lumber Company Mill on Big River Flat, 1890 - 1898. The third Mendocino lumber [...]
The Kelley House Museum’s yearly book sale—on Sunday, May 28th from 10 am to 3 pm—will feature a great selection of history and art books at low prices. This year, there are more than 50 books on the history of photography donated by Anne Bruhner from the collection of her late husband, sculptor Hans Bruhner. A number of them are beautiful coffee table books. Among the [...]
May 16, 1903 - The wagon of traveling salesman Xerxes A. Phillips was broken into while it was parked in front of Switzer & Boyd’s stable, which was located on the northwest corner of Albion and Lansing Streets. According to the Beacon, “A box containing about seventy-five ladies’ shirt waists [blouses] was taken and about a dozen pairs of shoes were missing.” Peddler and Wagon [...]
Angela Lansbury in the role of Jessica Fletcher while filming “Murder, She Wrote.” She is standing under the barber pole at Mitch’s Barber Shop on the corner of Lansing and Ukiah Streets. The Kelley House’s new digital exhibit, Angela Lansbury: Muse of Cabot Cove, is a tribute to the beloved actress and her impact on Mendocino. The exhibit examines her illustrious life and career, [...]
With Mother’s Day weekend fast approaching, a brief history of the holiday in the United States is in order. The popularity of the holiday in this country is due to the efforts of three women. In 1858, Ann Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia organized the first of her “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs,” which served as parenting classes for women to learn how to care for their [...]
May 9, 1922 - James Baskerville passed away suddenly from a heart attack, after suffering from heart trouble for the previous two years. About 18 months before his death, he travelled to San Francisco to consult with a heart specialist who diagnosed his ailment as angina pectoris and “told him he could hope for no permanent relief.” Born in Devonshire, England in 1848, James was the [...]
These two images, taken about 35 years apart, show the west and north sides of the Lansing House water tower located at 44900 Main Street in Mendocino. The Lansing House Water Tower, c. 1988. The west side of the McCornack House (Mendocino Village Inn in 1988) is visible on the left. The Lansing House Water Tower, 2023. The west side of the [...]
Only 2 days left to get tickets for the Angela Lansbury event! Did you know that Murder Ridge Winery, one of the sponsors of our Friday fundraiser, has a dark history behind its name? The land where the vineyard is located was once the site of a century-old murder that shocked the Anderson Valley community. In November 1910, Joe Cooper, a well-known pioneer of Anderson Valley, [...]