The Kelley House Museum could use your help in identifying this group of intriguing women. As the original paper matt frame indicates, the photograph was taken by the Fitch and King photography studio in Fort Bragg. We estimate the date between 1904 to 1914. Could this be your great grandmother and her friends? Why are they gathered together at the studio? How are they related? Please [...]
William Wetherbee Gibbs, whose nickname was “Sam Slick,” operated a saloon out of the front of his Main Street home in the 1870s. Originally, built about 1866, Sam Slick’s Saloon was located just west of the Mendocino Hotel, in the space now occupied by its restaurant. The Buffalo Saloon, c. 1886. Note the buffalo head over the door. Standing (L - R): Ed Hatch, Billy [...]
In 1850, the Baltimore-built Clipper Frolic, en-route to Gold-Rush San Francisco from China, wrecked on a reef just north of today’s Point Cabrillo Light Station. Her story has been called “the most significant shipwreck on the west coast” by historians. Artifacts and interpretive materials from the shipwreck of the Frolic are on permanent exhibit.
Pomos lived along the Mendocino Coast for thousands of years prior to European settlement in 1850. Pomo simply means “the people.” In 1855, the federal government established the Mendocino Indian Reservation on 25,000 acres between the Noyo and Ten Mile Rivers, with its military headquarters located in what is now the business center of the town of Fort Bragg, ten miles north of Mendocino. It is [...]
The Kelley House Museum is on the lookout for a local stamp collector who can help them evaluate three albums of First Day Stamp Covers. An inquiring mind might ask, “What is a First Day Cover?” An example of one of the hundreds of “First Day” Stamped Envelopes saved by an unknown collector in special albums and given to the Kelley House Museum. With [...]
Vintage Doorknobs from the Larry Sawyer and Harriet Bye Collection Vintage, decorative doorknobs fill the display cases at the Kelley House Museum in the latest installment of the Coastal Collections series. Colorful, intricate, charming, and functional, this assemblage provides a peek into some of the everyday objects people handled in former days. This collection of ornate door hardware is on loan from Larry Sawyer and Harriet [...]
Last year, the Kelley House was the lucky recipient of numerous items from the David J. Russell Estate. His generous children, Ann, David, Libby and Peter, offered us boxes of photographic prints and scanned negatives that capture their father’s fascination with the Mendocino Coast, (including the activities of the Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department), as well as maps and surveys he had made in his role as [...]
Two images, taken almost 100 years apart, showing the house located on the southeast corner of Howard and Ukiah Streets in Mendocino. 1928 image from the Kelley House Museum Archives A Category I historical structure, it was designed and built in 1883 by A. F. Carmichael as a residence for restauranteur and hotel owner W. T. Wilson. Starting in 1887, Dr. William McCornack rented the structure [...]
“Sunday Afternoon With The Ocean Wave Quilters” will be presented August 15 from 4-5PM in the Escola Room of the Kelley House Museum. This is an opportunity to meet the creators of the museum's summer display, Quilted Iconic Buildings of Mendocino. $7 public, $5 members. In July of 2019, one of the Ocean Wave Quilters members, Cindi Jo Willey, issued a challenge to guild members to [...]
The Kelley House’s summer exhibit, “Quilted Iconic Buildings of Mendocino” runs July 2 – August 31. The museum is open Friday – Sunday, 11am – 3pm. Twenty-five different historical buildings are colorfully rendered on 18” x 18” quilt squares, individually pieced and stitched by members of the Ocean Wave Quilters. In an extraordinary display of history meets art, iconic buildings are brought to life, including the [...]