THEN & NOW: View of Main Street from The Point

A northeastward view of Mendocino’s Main Street from The Point on the Headlands, taken between 1968 and 1972 by Eastman’s Studio, Susanville, California. In the foreground are wooden remnants of the structures that once occupied this lumber company shipping place. Some of the upright parts embedded in the ground may have been used by unknown sculptors to create totem or Tiki-type posts that persisted for decades overlooking the Bay.

 

Some of the buildings on Main Street in the earlier photo that can be identified, left to right, are: the Ramus-Hee Building with the glassed-in front porch; the unpainted remnant of a building that was once the Ramus Saloon; an empty lot known as Tank Alley, but later filled with a small store; and the two-story white building known as the Everson-Bank of Commerce Building, which housed Alphonso’s Mercantile from 1970-2003.

Continuing right is the former Eugene Brown Store that has recently been rebuilt in this photo as The Village Barn and Gallery, and right of that is the two-story Eugene Brown House, built in 1878. A one story, unpainted building to its right is the home of John Granskog, but would later be turned into Bill Zacha’s final location for his Bay Window Gallery. The 2.5 story structure next door was originally built in 1906 and was called the Eagle Saloon. It became a garage building, and was later torn down.

Two white buildings occupy the corners of Kasten and Main Streets – the Bank Building on the left, built in 1908, would later house the Out of This World store, and the Jarvis & Nichols Building across from it on Kasten, home for many years to Dostal’s Clock Shop (location of today’s Gallery Bookshop). The light turquoise building to its right is the building once known as the Remedy Store, and which is seen in this image undergoing its transformation into the Remedy Arcade shops with an entire wall opened up and filled with large windows. The last building on Main Street seen here is the old Post Office Building, built in 1957.

Several water towers appear in this photograph. The tallest one, seen right of the Odd Fellows Hall, is the Heeser Water Tower, missing its topmost water tank at this point in time. Its accompanying windmill can be seen farther right near the two-tank water tower that belongs to the Jarvis-Nichols Building. The pale yellow tower with the distinctive square top farther back is on Ukiah Street next to the MacCallum house. Immediately to its left is a tower without a tank, probably belonging to the Mendocino Hotel, whose mustard gold-painted corner is just visible on Main Street.