When the Baltimore clipper Frolic wrecked on the Mendocino Coast in 1850 while returning from China with a cargo of porcelain and silk bound for booming Gold Rush San Francisco, it came to rest in a cove north of today’s Point Cabrillo Lighthouse. As the crew abandoned ship, they gathered what provisions they could. Six sailors refused to leave the rigging and were left behind, while [...]
It was common years ago to report to the local newspaper if you had managed to grow the “biggest” of anything. From historian Nannie Escola’s newspaper clippings, we found attention directed to the “biggest” things around Mendocino. Vegetable and fruit display at Apple Hall, 1912. In November 1878, E.C. Toushes of Navarro brought in three cabbages weighing 22, 25, and 26 ¾ pounds to [...]
Elsie Allen, 1972. Born in 1899 near Santa Rosa, Elsie Allen was a fourth-generation basket weaver taught by her mother and grandmother. Elsie’s mother, Annie Burke, was a renowned weaver, and together they would travel to art fairs to show baskets. Tradition dictated that a weaver’s baskets be buried with her or a relative whenever she died. When Elsie’s grandmother passed, Elsie lost many [...]
Jane Ralston Ross is remembered as one of the Mendocino Coast’s most remarkable pioneer women, a source of strength, compassion, and Christian devotion. She was born in Glengarry, Ontario, Canada, on January 29, 1837, to Scottish parents, and shared with her husband, Rev. John Simpson Ross, a deep sense of faith and service. The couple married in 1863, and their first three children were born in [...]
The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming is turning 60! This beloved comedy was filmed almost entirely on the coast, including Mendocino, Noyo, Cleone, and Westport. Mendocino so closely resembles an east coast village that it was the backdrop for the movie village of Gloucester Island, Massachusetts. The film depicts the aftermath of a Soviet submarine running aground off the small New England island, and [...]