Monday, July 4th. HOURS: 11AM - 3PM Celebrate the Fourth of July on the Kelley House Lawn! Our biggest fundraiser is back after a two year hiatus. Dance to live music from the Mixed Nuts and watch the parade. Food will be courtesy of Miss KJ’s Bangin’ Bites food truck, serving street tacos, corn, fruit and churros. We’ll be selling margaritas, sangria, beer from North Coast [...]
On display at the Kelley House Museum’s current exhibit are several clay pipes. Most are incomplete – missing a stem or the bowl – but are nonetheless intriguing – as are the old glass bottles and other remnants of an earlier times that we have dug out of our archives for this show, “Neighbors Across The Pond.” A white clay smoking pipe with copper [...]
This exhibit runs through May 1, 2022. It displays vintage photographs from two of Mendocino’s founding families, the Kelleys and the Fords, who lived across the Main Street from each other. The exhibit includes glass bottles, dolls and clay pipes excavated from the historic Kelley Pond. Kelley House Museum, 45007 Albion Street, Mendocino kelleyhousemuseum.org (707) 937-5791 Thurs-Sun 11AM to 3PM
The Kelley House Museum in Mendocino is pleased to announce the publication of its latest book, Look Tin Eli – The Mendocino-Born Visionary Who Helped Shape the Chinese-American Experience. New Publication Explores the remarkable life of Mendocino-born Look Tin Eli, now available for purchase online and in bookstores. With almost fifty historic images, the 114-page publication is the first to present a comprehensive life [...]
The Kelleys were in the town of Mendocino at its founding in 1852. And over these last many years, we thought we had come to know a lot about them. A compelling image of Lloyd Drexler Kelley, William and Eliza Kelley’s grandson, recently received by the Kelley House Museum from family descendants. This was Lloyd’s official Army portrait taken when he was about 22 years [...]
December 4, 2021 Family fun with Santa and a toast to William Kelley’s 200th Birthday! VISIT SANTA 3:30-4:30 PM Bring your family and your holiday good cheer to snap a perfect picture standing next to Santa on our porch! Cookies and cider provided. Suggested donation: $5 HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE 5-7 PM After Santa leaves for the North Pole, join us as we toast the bicentennial birthday [...]
This week we celebrate the bicentennial of William Henry Kelley’s birth. And who is this W. H. Kelley? That is a question many people visiting the Kelley House Museum want answered when they walk through the door. He was a remarkable man, and his tale is worth telling. William Henry Kelley in 1865, thirteen years after arriving in Mendocino. He spelled his family name "Kelly" [...]
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.