January 16, 1924 - Mendocino pioneer Oscar M. Stone died at his home on Main Street at about 6 o’clock in the morning. Oscar was 81 years old and had been a resident of Mendocino for 60 years. Born in Mount Vernon, Maine, Oscar moved to the Mendocino Coast when he was 21 years old. For the final leg of his journey to Mendocino, he took [...]
January 13, 1908 - Tragedy struck the Kent family on their 270-acre ranch in Little River. About 6am, 16-year-old Ralph Kent, second oldest son of rancher Nathaniel W. Kent, went into the family barn to complete his morning chores. A few minutes later, his father found Ralph unconscious on the barn floor, due to an electrical shock. A transformer on a nearby pole had malfunctioned, causing [...]
January 1, 1938 - Grace Maxwell became the bride of Emil LaVerne “Buck” Haglund at her mother’s home on Kasten Street. Grace was the daughter of Elsie (Tobin) Maxwell and the late Perley Maxwell, a well-known Mendocino building contractor and photographer. High School friends posing in a car at Camp E - Boyle's Camp on July 4, 1930. L - R: Albert Lemos, Merna Brown, [...]
December 30, 1887 - Rev. J. P. Rich of the Mendocino Presbyterian Church officiated at the funeral of church member Christina Perry. Christina had died the day before at the Howard Street home of her stepson Ira after a months-long illness. She was 78. Following the funeral, which was held at the Perry house, she was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. Christina was born in Pennsylvania, [...]
December 17, 1930 - Fire destroyed the laboratory in Dr. C. V. Whited’s dental office, located on the north side of Main Street in the building that currently houses the Mendocino Chocolate Company. Flames erupted around 2 pm, while no one was inside the building. The dentist had been working in his office earlier in the afternoon, but had stepped across the street to the fire [...]
December 9, 1882 - The formal opening of the Mansion House was celebrated with a Grand Ball. This large hotel was located on the southwest corner of Little Lake and Lansing streets and was constructed by Willits architect and builder O. B. Ackerman for proprietor A. T. Rodgers. The Beacon described the hotel as “three stories in height and well built. On the first floor at [...]
December 5, 1914 - A group of young men in Caspar organized the Sequoia Band, under the guidance of director John Murray. Sequoia Band of Caspar, c. 1915. Top row L-R: Elbert Montgomery, unidentified, Juel Jensen, unidentified, Ragnar Wahlstrom, unidentified, unidentified. Front row: Lester Moody, Jack Casey, Bill Brady, unidentified, unidentified, Bill Nylander, Dave Brinzing, Henry Van Ahnen. (Gift of Vince Johnson) This band [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]