December 2, 1925 - Nineteen-year-old Fay Lanphier, recently crowned Miss America, arrived at the Mendocino home of her aunt, Jennie Swanson, for a visit. Fay was born in Elk on December 12, 1905 to Casper and Emily Lanphier. When she was a young girl, the Lanphier family moved to Mendocino, and Fay and her siblings attended the first Mendocino Grammar School on the corner of Pine [...]
Kelley House Holiday Gift Guide - For Art and Water Tower Lovers WATER TOWERS OF MENDOCINO - LIMITED EDITION PRINT Wow someone special with this gorgeous print depicting some of Mendocino's iconic (and still standing) water towers. Limited, signed and numbered prints by local artist Michelle Noe. $85.00 This fantastical collage depicts 15 of Mendocino’s iconic water towers entwined with some of the town’s unique flora. [...]
Bever House, c. 1932. (Kelley House Collection) Bever House, 2023. (Photographer: Robert Dominy) These two images, taken about 90 years apart, show the Bever House on Little Lake Street across from the Art Center in Mendocino. This home was built in the 1880s for brothers Benjamin and Samuel Bever. They were born in Bates County, Missouri in the 1840s. Their father, [...]
November 27, 1964 - The old blacksmith shop on the northwest corner of Lansing and Little Lake streets (where Century 21 is located today) was demolished. According to the Beacon, the big building “went down with a crash when Clarence Ponts made his final attack on it with his big cat.” The building had its beginnings in November 1882, when blacksmith and wheelwright George Hall built [...]
Enjoy unobstructed views of the Mendocino Bay from your private suite at the top of a water tower. The Kelley House Museum is auctioning off a package that includes two nights at the boutique MacCallum House Inn. The three story water tower sleeps four people and features a luxurious bath and sauna. Place the highest bid online by 5:00 PM PST on December 5th, and you’ll [...]
November 25, 1924 - Frank J. Mendosa passed away at his home on Little Lake Road at the age of 73. Born on the island of Flores in the Azores, Frank left Portugal at a young age, joining the crew of a whaling vessel and making several trips around Cape Horn. In his early twenties, he landed in Boston, where he worked for a short time [...]
Nannie Escola, one of the first chroniclers of Mendocino coast lore, left the Kelley House notebooks full of newspaper clippings and her handwritten notes about local happenings. What follows are some tidbits of interest about Comptche, 12 miles inland, gleaned from those three-ring binders. In the fall of 1884, Newman E. Hoak showed off a gloria mundi apple weighing 29 oz. and a pippin weighing 18 [...]
November 20, 1933 - Night school classes were offered for the first time at Mendocino High School. The courses were made possible through cooperation with the Russian Gulch Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp. President Franklin Roosevelt established the CCC in April 1933 as part of his New Deal legislation. The program put hundreds of thousands of young men across the country to work on environmental conservation [...]
Cattle drive down Caspar's Main Street, past the Caspar Athletic Club. The cows and their calves are being driven to pasture on the Caspar Headlands. The buildings shown on Main Street are, L - R: Dance Hall, Caspar Hotel, Nolan Grocery Store and the Caspar Athletic Club. Also in this view are square utility poles and a residential picket fence. Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Mendocino [...]
A patriotic turkey family in a postcard from about 1900. Image from the Library of Congress. I was in the grocery store the other day looking at the displays of all the edibles and drinkables I am supposed to buy for Thanksgiving. Turkey, cornbread stuffing, pumpkin pie, cranberries, sweet and mashed potatoes, gravy, Beans or Brussel sprouts, and, of course, dinner rolls. Is there [...]