Old Time Notes from The Beacon

130 Years Ago Oct. 4, 1890

• Fort Bragg will now experience a stroke of the dull times, the mills at that place and Glen Blair shutting down this week for an indefinite period.

• Three hundred feet of the new wharf at Usal was carried away by the heavy sea Sunday. Considerable machinery and tools were lost with the wharf. The loss will be a serious drawback to the project.

• The population of San Francisco, according to the census just taken, is 297,990making it the ninth-largest city in America.

• The passenger list of the Coos Bay, taken Wednesday, was larger than usual, about fifty men being aboard bound for Seattle.

• The underwriters have abandoned all ideas of saving anything from the steamer Ajax which was wrecked on Blunt's reef on the 18th. A telegram has been sent to Captain Whitelaw, the wrecker, asking him if he would buy her, but yet no answer has been received fromhim. She is lying about two miles off Shelter Cove, in 18 fathoms of water, and at lowtide, about 4 feet of her masts can be seen above the water.

105 Years Ago Oct. 2, 1915

• The Mendocino Bakery, which has been conducted for the last six years by August Miller, has changed hands and will hereafter be conducted by Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Johnson, of Albion Ridge, who are well-known here, having conducted a boarding and rooming house last year.

• G. W. Terwilliger of Oakland arrived here this week with his wife and in a few days will open a restaurant in the J. D. Johnson building on the corner of Lansing and Ukiah streets.

• Onemore of the old coast pioneers was called to his reward last Tuesday, when James A. Joyce passed away at Noyo.

• Frank Auser, a former resident of this coast, who has been living for some time in Humboldt County, has returned with his family and will again take up his residence in his ranch south of Little River.

• A son was born to the wife of A.V. Silva at Mendocino on Sept. 25.

• John Nelson returned on the Sea Foam Thursday from a three-weeks' visit to the exposition at San Francisco.

• Miss Jessie DeVilbiss has opened the Philo grammar school, and the Anderson Valley High School has also started with about 40 pupils in attendance.

75 Years Ago Sept. 29, 1945

• Francis Jackson, who was in Germany at the time of the surrender, has returned to this country and has been given an honorable discharge. Other local boys who have been home recently are Bob Stayton, who has been with the naval forces in the South Pacific, and his brother, Mervin, whowas in the Army Air Corps, stationed in England.

• Staff Sgt. Harry Urbani arrived home Thursday. He has been in Italy for the past two years. He landed at Patrick Henry in Virginia, about the first of the month and was transferred to Camp Beall where he was honorably discharged from the army.

• Roy Falleri returned to his home in Elk Sunday. He has been at Pensacola, Florida, since November, where hewas sent after his thirty-day furlough at home. He was in the Navy and now has been honorably discharged.

• Staff Sgt. Frederick Porteous is expected home in October. Sgt. Porteous has been overseas for 29 months and has earned six battle stars. He will be discharged on arrival in the United States.

55 Years Ago Oct. 1, 1965

• Three of the principal characters in “Bonanza” have acquired the sprawling 9,300-acre Rockpile Ranch which lies in northern Sonoma and southern Mendocino counties in the Dry Creek area. New owners of the huge spread are Lorne Greene, “Ben Cartwright;” Dan Blocker, “Hoss;” and Michael Landon, “Little Joe.” The sale pricewas in excess of $1 million. The ranch has been used for grazing sheep.

• Funeral services will be held Oct. 1 at the St. Paul Methodist Church for Walter Craig, 75. Mr. Craig died at his home Tuesday. He was a self-employed dairy rancher. A veteran of World War I, Mr. Craig was born Jan. 17, at Iverson Landing and was a lifelong resident of the Mendocino Coast.

• A total of 60 extras crowded into scenes of the filming of “The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming” at Noyo this week. Jonathan Winters was on the set, carving a totem pole of redwood. He stood ready to pose for pictures and sign autographs, as did Brian Keith, Carl Reiner, Paul Ford, and many others. The film company as a whole is enjoying the sights of the Mendocino coast, making use of the golf courses, the sports fishing, sightseeing, and other attractions. Touring the galleries and meeting many of the local artists also

seems to be a pastime.

30 Years Ago Oct. 4, 1990

• MPAC will hold a public reading of Ibsen’s masterpiece about the beautiful and enigmatic character, Hedda Gabler, on Oct. 9 at the Helen Schoeni Theater. The Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, is known as the father of modern drama for his naturalistic style and mastery of dramatic structure. His play, “A Doll’s House,” is often credited as being a catalyst to the women’s liberation movement.

• There will be a double book signing for local authors, Bob Lorentzen and Rodney Jones and Gerald Uelmen on Oct. 6. Bob Lorentzen has just self-published the third title in his highly successful hiking guide series, “The Hiker’s Hip Pocket Guide To Sonoma County.”

• Editorial: A cold wind started blowing early this week. It came as a reminder of the beginning fall season and the change in everyone’s pace. Now is the time to get the wood split and covered, get the flue cleaned, clean up the garden and preserve the last of the harvest.

• Bookmark by Tony Miksak: Publisher’s dollar sale figures for children’s books from 1980 to 1985 more than doubled. And by the end of this year sales will double again

… Publishers are turning out books for children fast fast fast. The task of wading through them for the ones worth reading is hard, hard, hard.