William Wetherby Gibb, born in Calais, Maine circa 1826, came to this coast about 1854. He had been a lumberman in Maine, and in Mendocino he was employed by the California Lumber Manufacturing Company. Gibb may have worked his way up to the lumber company office, for in the 1860s, possibly as late as 1867 or ’68, he was sent to Chile “to track down a company employee who had taken some payroll,” according to his granddaughter, Genevieve Wofford.
Main Street Businesses, c. 1877. On the right is the home of W. W. Gibbs, aka “Sam Slick,” who operated a saloon in the front of his house. To its left is the C. O. Packard Drug Store with the J. E. Packard Jewelry Store, then S. Marks & Co. Furniture Store, followed by John Barry’s Barber Shop with John Barry and his children sitting in the doorway. Finally, the Jarvis & Nichols General Merchandise Store (today’s Gallery Bookshop) on the corner of Kasten Street. The Chung Kow Laundry and Wash House is visible on the left edge of the image.
While in Chile he met Petra Chamarrow at a bullfight in Valparaiso, and he married her. Gibb brought his bride, in her late teens, back to Mendocino and they set up housekeeping in a small house just west of the present Mendocino Hotel where the Garden Room is now. Whether Gibb found no job open to him at the mill, or decided he could make more money as a publican is not known, but he soon remodeled the little house to accommodate a saloon in its front.
During his saloon days, Gibb acquired the sobriquet Sam Slick. Why that is the case, we do not know, but we quote from the West Coast Star of September 26, 1874: “Our neighbor (the West Coast Star office was a couple of doors west of the saloon), S. Slick Esq., who has long been noted for his legal tastes and acquirements is, we understand, to devote himself to the study of marine law. Advice and fees extremely moderate.”
Apparently, he didn’t make a fortune in marine law or booze for, in 1879, Gibb closed the saloon and went to work again as a lumberman on Caspar Creek. Two years later his health failed and he died quite suddenly from an attack of acute gastritis. Gibb’s widow Petra was left with five children and she soon married H.S. Van Treat, a woodsman who agreed to take care of the children and her.
In May, 1883 Jacob Hanson announced in the Beacon the reopening of the saloon formerly kept by Sam Slick on Main Street. [Hanson called it the Buffalo Saloon.] In 1905 Petra Van Treat lost the property to foreclosure and, shortly thereafter, J.A. Silvia bought it at a county sheriff’s sale. The property was adjacent to his Central Hotel [later the Mendocino Hotel]. In the years after WWI, the building was operated as an army surplus store.
[In May of 1932, the Beacon reported that Albert Brown had purchased the building next to the Hotel Mendocino from John A. Silvia and had begun tearing the structure down. A month later, the newspaper opined that, “With a little imagination, anyone can visualize a very attractive park space in the cleared Buffalo Saloon property.” Indeed, in the 1950s, it was a little park with horseshoe pits and space to throw balls around. According to Mendocino native Steve Jordan, “There was a fence with an arbor along the sidewalk.”
In the spring of 1967, Lauren Dennen, then-owner of the Mendocino Hotel, announced he was going to develop a Victorian garden, to be called the “Village Square.” Dennen reported in the April 21st Beacon that “Plank tables and benches will be arranged in the Village Square for the serving of luncheon and, on mild nights, possibly dinner. The area will be lighted in keeping with the flavor of the planning. Remodeling of the hotel will include a doorway from the kitchen for serving of the up-graded menus directly from the kitchen, as soon as the weather clears.”
Ten years later, after R. O. Peterson had purchased the hotel, the Beacon reported on April 28, 1977 that he had sought permission from the newly created MHRB to enclose the garden area on the southwest side of the Mendocino Hotel. The following year, the Beacon reported that a contractor was making improvements to the Garden Room.]
– Excerpted and annotated from “Mendocino’s Hotels & Saloons,” by Dorothy Bear and Beth Stebbins, Mendocino Historical Review, June, 1980.
The Kelley House Museum is open from 11AM to 3PM Friday through Sunday. Come by to see our current exhibit on the Northern Pomo. Walking Tours of Mendocino are available throughout the week; the cost is $25. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar for a Walking Tour schedule.