The Kelley House Museum in Mendocino is pleased to announce the publication of its latest book, Look Tin Eli – The Mendocino-Born Visionary Who Helped Shape the Chinese-American Experience. New Publication Explores the remarkable life of Mendocino-born Look Tin Eli, now available for purchase online and in bookstores. With almost fifty historic images, the 114-page publication is the first to present a comprehensive life [...]
The Kelleys were in the town of Mendocino at its founding in 1852. And over these last many years, we thought we had come to know a lot about them. A compelling image of Lloyd Drexler Kelley, William and Eliza Kelley’s grandson, recently received by the Kelley House Museum from family descendants. This was Lloyd’s official Army portrait taken when he was about 22 years [...]
December 4, 2021 Family fun with Santa and a toast to William Kelley’s 200th Birthday! VISIT SANTA 3:30-4:30 PM Bring your family and your holiday good cheer to snap a perfect picture standing next to Santa on our porch! Cookies and cider provided. Suggested donation: $5 HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE 5-7 PM After Santa leaves for the North Pole, join us as we toast the bicentennial birthday [...]
This week we celebrate the bicentennial of William Henry Kelley’s birth. And who is this W. H. Kelley? That is a question many people visiting the Kelley House Museum want answered when they walk through the door. He was a remarkable man, and his tale is worth telling. William Henry Kelley in 1865, thirteen years after arriving in Mendocino. He spelled his family name "Kelly" [...]
The Kelley House Museum could use your help in identifying this group of intriguing women. As the original paper matt frame indicates, the photograph was taken by the Fitch and King photography studio in Fort Bragg. We estimate the date between 1904 to 1914. Could this be your great grandmother and her friends? Why are they gathered together at the studio? How are they related? Please [...]
William Wetherbee Gibbs, whose nickname was “Sam Slick,” operated a saloon out of the front of his Main Street home in the 1870s. Originally, built about 1866, Sam Slick’s Saloon was located just west of the Mendocino Hotel, in the space now occupied by its restaurant. The Buffalo Saloon, c. 1886. Note the buffalo head over the door. Standing (L - R): Ed Hatch, Billy [...]
In 1850, the Baltimore-built Clipper Frolic, en-route to Gold-Rush San Francisco from China, wrecked on a reef just north of today’s Point Cabrillo Light Station. Her story has been called “the most significant shipwreck on the west coast” by historians. Artifacts and interpretive materials from the shipwreck of the Frolic are on permanent exhibit.
Pomos lived along the Mendocino Coast for thousands of years prior to European settlement in 1850. Pomo simply means “the people.” In 1855, the federal government established the Mendocino Indian Reservation on 25,000 acres between the Noyo and Ten Mile Rivers, with its military headquarters located in what is now the business center of the town of Fort Bragg, ten miles north of Mendocino. It is [...]
The Kelley House Museum is on the lookout for a local stamp collector who can help them evaluate three albums of First Day Stamp Covers. An inquiring mind might ask, “What is a First Day Cover?” An example of one of the hundreds of “First Day” Stamped Envelopes saved by an unknown collector in special albums and given to the Kelley House Museum. With [...]
Vintage Doorknobs from the Larry Sawyer and Harriet Bye Collection Vintage, decorative doorknobs fill the display cases at the Kelley House Museum in the latest installment of the Coastal Collections series. Colorful, intricate, charming, and functional, this assemblage provides a peek into some of the everyday objects people handled in former days. This collection of ornate door hardware is on loan from Larry Sawyer and Harriet [...]