Practicing Medicine in Mendocino

On April 26, 2009, the Kelley House Museum hosted Dr. Don Hahn and Dr. Jim Swallow. The pair discussed what it was like to practice medicine in Mendocino through the years. The following excerpt chronicles Dr. Hahn’s arrival in Mendocino in the mid-1960s. To watch the full discussion, visit the Kelley House Museum YouTube channel.

Swallow: Don graduated from Princeton in 1951 and then graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1955. That was one thing that amazed me, that his professors and some of the people he worked for had written some of the textbooks I used in medical school. [Don] was in the Air Force from 1957 through 1963 and then came out to the West Coast Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center, which was at that time part of the Stanford program. Don did his residency there. So now here he is finishing his residency in San Francisco. What brought you up here?

Hahn: It was very straightforward. I got a couple of days off. I heard about the North Coast being a destination, and coincidentally, two friends independently recommended that I spend overnight in Mendocino. With that sort of recommendation, I headed straight up the coast and had the experience that is special for particularly all of us who came from elsewhere−that view of town as you approach from the south. It just blew me away, and I thought “Oh my gosh, I may not be able to get a room in there.” So, I sped up, halted in front of the hotel, into the lobby, where there was no one except the manager.

So that naturally led to trying to figure out whether such a thing could happen. I’d always considered myself a city boy, but the chance of trying to live in such a place was too tempting. I looked it up and there were two realtors in town, which seemed maybe one more than they needed. I found George Thompson. He took me around a few places that could maybe be converted into a medical office. One was too big, the one that became the Murder, She Wrote house [The Blair House]. It was too big. Then there was a little house down just below Crown Hall. The previous occupant had, not long ago, passed away. There was a phonograph there with a record on it, which was entitled “The Last Roundup.” That somehow didn’t feel right. Then George told me about this sort of new fellow in town. He had a lot on Main Street, and he was planning to build his home there and live on the second floor and have a gallery on the first floor. His name was Bill Zacha.

We looked him up, and he liked the prospect of having a doctor who presumably would be able to pay the rent. We agreed to give it a try, which for me was extremely lucky, because the structure had not been started, but he did have blueprints. I was free to design the office, just following his footprint. And so there in the next year, when I finished my residency, I moved up here to a brand-new office with all the niceties that I could think of.

To hear more from Dr. Hahn and Dr. Swallow about practicing medicine in Mendocino, visit the Kelley House Museum YouTube channel. On Tap at the Kelley House: The History of Brewing on the Mendocino Coast is now open to view! The Kelley House is open Thursday-Monday from 11am-3pm. Walking Tours of Mendocino are available throughout the week; visit the Kelley House event calendar for a schedule.