So, I walk into the Comptche Store and owner Belinda Pollack hands me a sheet of paper with a list of names and says, ”Look what someone gave me! And who was Amanda Newman?” Another local history exploration begins. Belinda and my husband are both multi-generational descendants of old-time Comptche families, so we knew the names on the list. It was titled, “Comptche Friends Floral Tribute [...]
Did you know you can find more than 50 different kinds of seashells on the Mendocino Coast? Thanks to the late Dr. Richard White’s publication, “Mendocino Medicine and Gazetteer,” his interest in seashells can be shared 30 years later. Jane Russell’s hand-drawn illustration that appears on the cover of the report, “Seashells of Albion; The Gastropods, 1992.” “Seashells of Albion: The Gastropods” was a fascicle (printed [...]
With the world re-opening after difficult times, the Kelley House Museum is making its own plans to open its doors again…but we could use some help. The doors can’t be open if a friendly docent isn’t available to answer questions. Could this person be you? Veteran docent Judy Chapman greets visitors at the Kelley House Museum. First response to this question we usually hear is, “Oh, [...]
Fire destroys the Mendocino Grammar School, Tuesday, December 3, 1929. The tall structure left standing in the center is the bell tower. The school was replaced the following year with the building that currently houses the Mendocino Community Center. (Original photos from Kelley House Museum Archives and the Nannie Escola Collection) “What Became of the Little Red Schoolhouse” is a five-volume compilation of information on more [...]
Stopping by to visit the Little River Improvement Club and Museum these days, visitors may not realize the small white structure was once the social center of town. The ticket for a 1948 Little River Improvement Club card party that inspired this article. (Courtesy Vince Johnson Collection, in Kelley House Museum) The building itself, located 1.5 miles south of Mendocino on the east side of Highway [...]
Ever hear of the Mendocino Medicine and Gazetteer? It was created by Dr. Richard White, who practiced medicine on the coast 45 years ago. A man of many interests, White started it in 1976 as a journal of rural medicine, and it grew to encompass a world of topics. Hand-drawn map of the Mouth of the Albion River, by R. Kezuka from “Mendocino Medicine and Gazetteer” [...]
At the Kelley House we were given a photograph with no caption, showing a teacher standing in front of a one-room schoolhouse with her students. But where is this place? The background was open clear sky which led us to believe it was a coastal school on a bluff, but which one? And how many coastal view schools were there? Turns out there were close to [...]
How many readers are aware that Southern Pacific Railroad owned a good chunk of the land between the Albion and Navarro Rivers out to Comptche? No, the company wasn’t planning to build an extension of their railroad on this land…they needed timber. Did you know Southern Pacific Railroad once owned a chunk of the county and would be happy to sell logged-over lands in 1940? Shown: [...]
The staff at the Kelley House Museum never cease to be amazed by the material the public presents to us as gifts. Take Auggie Heeser’s book, “First Lessons in Arithmetic” by William J. Milne, Ph. D., LL D. given to us by former Mendocino resident Deborah White. A twelve-year old Auggie Heeser in 1889 and his math textbook. (Kelley House Museum, from the collection of Robert [...]
Over the past few weeks or so the history of libraries on the Mendocino Coast has been explored in this Kelley House column. Here is the last segment on library growth on the South Coast. How do you move a Library? One book at a time in a human chain from one location to another in Pt. Arena as the Coast Community Library book collection moved [...]