aerial view, 1947 MAIN STREET FROM ABOVE. The South Of Main exhibit at the Kelley House Museum (through May 18th) offers some unusual photographic views as we rediscover what was on Mendocino’s Main Street before 1960, when the last of the buildings were torn down and the view from the Headlands was fully revealed. This 1947 photograph, obtained from the California Landmark Foundation, intrigues all who see it. Many recognizable buildings are on the north side, but what were those facing[... see full page]

Mendocino is a wooden place. No surprise there, since the town’s economy was founded on trees. The lumber mill provided plentiful building supplies for homes, stores and sidewalks. Kasten Street at Albion Street in Mendocino, c. 1912. The Bank House (now Trillium restaurant) is on the left, surrounded by a white picket fence. A Jarvis & Nichols storage barn is on the right, constructed in 1904 with corrugated iron siding and roof after a fire burned a previous storage building. The[... see full page]

 Lost Buildings of the Mendocino Headlands - The City Meat Market (left) and the Mendocino Lumber Company Office (right) on the south side of Main Street, in 1957. The inspiration for the latest exhibit at the Kelley House Museum, South of Main, came from a question we so frequently hear – what used to be there? The THERE refers to the south side of downtown Mendocino’s Main Street, where there are no buildings. Museum visitors, walking tour docents, residents - all[... see full page]

Meat Market on the South side of Main Street, 1957. Originally built in 1874, the structure always housed a meat market on its ground floor. It was one of just a few of the many Company buildings still standing when it was torn down in the summer of 1960 by its owner, the Union Lumber Company. SOUTH of MAIN – Discovering the Lost Buildings of the Mendocino Headlands opens next week at the Kelley House Museum. The exhibit takes visitors on[... see full page]

What do all of the 80 people listed below have in common?

• Cammie Conlon
• Ramelle Irish
• Dorothy Bear
• Elinor Hayes
• Wally Smith
• Daniel Taylor
• Anne B Campbell
• Dee Stenbeck Lemos
• Charles Meigs Bush
• Wilma Tucker
• Patricia Patty Madigan
• Earlene Jankowicz
• Jean Spencer Felton
• Jone Lemos Jackson
• Pat Turner
• Eva Welles
• Priya Davis
• Eleanor Sverko
• Louis Hough
• Steven Jordan
• Joy Shaw
• Martin Simpson
• Katie Mimms
• Carolyn (CJ) Cooper
• Katy Tahja
• Nancy Cruz
• Warren[... see full page]

Brick in the Kelley House Museum walkway, originally from San Francisco’s City Hall, c. 1870. In the eternal quest historians undertake to date building construction, sometimes they turn to the common brick. Believe it or not we’ve had history professors visit the county who specialize in tracing the origin of bricks. In 1984 this same Kelley House Calendar column reported on Professor Margaret Henry of San Francisco State University dating bricks discovered around the Kelley House Museum. Like any reusable building material,[... see full page]