A little over one hundred years ago, it took a heavy dose of determination and grit just to get a high school team to a basketball game. The beginnings of Mendocino High School basketball didn’t present a rosy picture. Back in 1907, writing in the school annual then known as “The Occident,” a student concluded that, “The Mendocino High School has accomplished little in the way of athletics. This is principally due to its isolated situation and the lack of[... see full page]

By William Lemos, Kelley House Museum member Dateline: 1942. The men were overseas fighting dictatorships, fascism, and tyranny. While they were gone they wrote letters home describing the conditions they lived with daily, and they often described longings they had to return to the normalcy of their previous lives. These letters needed to be delivered, and the U.S. Postal Service was there to provide that service to both G.I.s and their families. In many cases, these communications kept families together under the[... see full page]

by Sarah Nathe, Kelley House Museum Board secretary We left off last week puzzling over the incongruities inherent in the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization for white people that patterns its costumes, rituals and terminology after early Native Americans. Photos in the Kelley House archives show Red Men parading around town in Indian getups, tomahawks, tom toms and American flags in hand. Grown men? This phenomenon has been so prevalent in the USA that you can write a book[... see full page]

by Sarah Nathe, Kelley House Museum Board secretary While visions of Pilgrims and Wampanoags, and turkeys, danced in my head last week, my thoughts just naturally turned to the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization very big in these parts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Photographs in the Kelley House archives show groups of Red Men, tricked out in what can best be described as Indian drag, posing at their initiation ceremonies or riding on floats[... see full page]

It is going to be a difficult Thanksgiving for many residents of Mendocino County and those neighboring areas hit hardest by the recent fires. As an organization dealing in history, it might be instructive to look at one aspect of why the Kelley House Museum is here: keeping Mendocino’s past alive for today and its present alive for the future. This photograph of the Ford family, who originally lived on Mendocino’s Main Street in what is now the office of the[... see full page]

There used to be a pretty exciting center of entertainment in Mendocino. The establishment, located on the corner of Ukiah and Lansing Streets at Kelliowen Hall, was owned by Joseph H. Nichols. Candy could be purchased, movies viewed and patrons could practice their skating skills. There was also a pool room for the men of the town. On November 20, 1909, the Beacon reported that Mr. Nichols had been granted a concession within the large building by the trustees of the[... see full page]