Senior portrait of Charles Tannlund, Class of 1918, Mendocino High School. (Gift of Jeanette Mendosa Hansen)
November 12, 1918 – A number of young men returned to the Mendocino Coast, just days after being called up to serve their country during World War I. The armistice ending the war had been signed just the day before, and their military service was abruptly cancelled.
Two weeks earlier, the Mendocino Draft Board in Ukiah had mailed out notifications to 300 men to appear for physical examinations on November 3rd. The War Department needed new recruits to take the train from Ukiah to Kelly Field in Texas during the week of November 11th. Kelly Field was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established after the United States entered World War I. In addition to training pilots and mechanics, this camp served as a reception and classification center, testing thousands of recruits before assigning them to specific jobs and squadrons for training.
On November 9th, M. H. Iversen, head of the County Draft Board, summoned a group of coast men who had passed their physicals to Ukiah to leave for Kelly Field on November 12th. Most took the morning train from Fort Bragg on November 11th. When they arrived in Willits, they were notified that their call to service had been cancelled on account of the signing of the armistice that day. Many continued on to Ukiah to assure themselves that no mistake had occurred.
Linwood Daniels, Charles Tannlund, Robert Hayter, A. E. Chalmers, Donald Kent, and Gerald Cummings were among the men who returned to the coast the following day.
Haunted Mendocino Walking Tour – Wear your sweater since you’re bound to get goosebumps listening to the ghostly tales of some of Mendocino’s more infamous residents. We’ll stop at the homes, hideouts, and hangouts of all the well-known specters, and learn a little of the town’s history along the way. Gaze into a mirror where people have seen a woman in Victorian dress looking back at them. Peer into the waves in search of a stallion and the rider who took it into the sea. Did you know not all hauntings are about scary visions or terrifying noises, but that some ghosts haunt with scents? What is that thing that goes bump in the night, followed by sounds of a taut rope swinging from the rafters? Why can guests hear the pitter patter of pets in a building where pets aren’t allowed? What is the area’s oldest known ghost story? And how many spooks haunt the streets of Mendocino? All questions will be answered on this hour and a half long tour through Haunted Mendocino. Join us… if you’re not too scared. November 25 @ 7PM. $25.