Monthly Archives: October 2026

With Netflix’s new adaptation of East of Eden premiering today, it’s a perfect time to revisit Mendocino’s connection to the original 1955 film. This movie starred James Dean as Cal Trask, and was filmed in and around Mendocino, transforming the town into the fictional Salinas Valley community of Monterey. This article was originally published in March 2025. James Dean was the Timothée Chalamet of his generation. [...]

Rob Hawthorn sharing ghost stories at the Mendocino Hotel. When I moved to Mendocino in 1995, I lived in a fantastic two-story Victorian with a water tower, built sometime before 1880. I was already a history buff and a fan of ghost stories, so when my mother-in-law started talking about sensing a “mysterious presence” at the top of the stairwell, I was over the [...]