Old Time Notes from The Beacon

130 Years Ago Dec. 20, 1890

• It is expected that Bendixsen, the Eureka shipbuilder, will launch another vessel the latter part of next week. This will make the sixth vessel built at that place during 1890.

• The steamer Venture is to take the place of the steamer South Coast, recently damaged on the rocks at Fort Bragg.

• A meeting was held last week at Manchester to consider the advisability of building a Presbyterian Church. It was decided to build and committees were appointed to select the site and to draw up the plans and specifications.

• Parties have been on the coast in search of 130 head of cattle stolen from the ranch of Mr. Light, of Gridley, Butte County. Light grazes some 1400 head of cattle, and it appears that while he was visiting in Oregon last October, thieves appropriated 130 head for their own use. They were tracked through Boonville and as far as Mountain View, but what became of them after that is still a mystery but the supposition is that they are on this coast.

105 Years Ago Dec. 18, 1915

• Albert Brown, manager of the local electric light office, has been demonstrating electric heating appliances this week by serving free coffee and toast made on the premises. Those who have partaken say that both are of excellent quality, and Mr. Brown is enjoying an excellent patronage.

• George Smith of Greenwood was here Thursday to meet his brother, J. P. Smith, who arrived on the Sea Foam from San Francisco. Mr. Smith has been away for about fourteen years, but now intends to stay on the coast and with his brother run their father’s ranch near Greenwood.

• Born — A son was born to the wife of Constantine A. Silveria in Mendocino on December 13th. A son was born to the wife of Matthew Casey of East Mendocino on December 16th.

• Miss Stella Tyson returned Thursday from San Francisco, where she has been attending the normal school.

• Dolph Hazeltine, while cranking an auto last Tuesday, had his right wrist broken by the backfire. Mr. Hazeltine is from Mendocino and has been employed for several months as a mechanic in the Fort Bragg Garage.

75 Years Ago Dec. 15, 1945

• Fire takes remains of Mendocino Mill — The hum of the saws, the chug, chug of the big steam engine, the deep tone of the old whistle of the Big River mill, echoing up the deep canyons for miles inland, will be heard no more. The mill burned early Wednesday morning at about three o’clock. It was like paying the last respects to a lifelong friend to see the flames reach heavenward, with great billows of smoke floating out to sea, borne on the land breeze which in the fall and winter sweeps down the high walled river valley, like a huge draft through a tunnel. Little do the present generation or those to come realize, or little will they care, what that old mill once meant to Mendocino. Our forefathers toiled the hard way trudging to the mill before daylight in the cold mornings, day in and day out for years, and at night making their way homeward, tired and weary, plodding over the old board sidewalks until the constant tramp, tramp of their hob-nailed boots, left the imprint of those hardy pioneers deeply carved in every board from the mill to the town. For the past year, the mill was being dismantled by Joe Harrah from Willits, and he had been more than cautious about fire.

55 Years Ago Dec. 17, 1965

• Again, this country has achieved a “first” in space when its two flight ships, Gemini 6 and 7, met with a distance of only 6 to 10 feet separating them after what is characterized as an 83,000-mile race around our world. The two capsules kept their space date in darkness over the Mariana Islands north of Guam at an altitude of about 187 miles while both were streaking around the earth at approximately 17,540 miles an hour.

Thus, wonderful air achievement has again come to this nation’s astronauts, for which we can all be proud. Gemini 6 was safely landed Thursday morning after the history-making rendezvous.

• Little River Airport News: Steve Baxman of the Baxman Gravel Co. in Fort Bragg landed in a Cessna 170 for fuel and was “shooting a few landings.”

• Miss Elinor Hayes will be spending Christmas at her local vacation home, her coastal friends will be pleased to know. She lives in San Francisco and is a reporter for the Oakland Tribune.

• A pleasingly large number of members and guests were in attendance when president Janice Grant called the Mendocino Study Club meeting to order on December 10. Following the business meeting, Mrs. Thorkild Thomsen offered a delightful program in which the group sang a verse of each Christmas Carol after she had read the story of its origin.

30 Years Ago Dec. 13, 1995

• Helen Lemos Harmon died Nov. 29, 1990. She was the eighth child born to the late Antone and Emily Lemos, arriving Nov. 14, 1918, in the Mendocino home where she and her nine siblings would all be raised. She grew up a part of this big family that extended to many friends. As the older of the younger ones, she was the “big sister” and watched over the two youngest, Jack and Rich. The last of the clan formed a close bond. Helen graduated from Mendocino Grammar and in the class of 1936 from Mendocino High School. On July 5 of that year, she married Oliver Harmon, and they lived in Caspar, where their three children were born. Later they were to move to Ukiah. After their retirement, his from PG&E and hers from the credit union, they acquired property at Fort Bidwell in Modoc County. There she could fish in the streams, hunt deer, and enjoy the outdoors as she did with her family at their ranch at Vichy Springs in Ukiah.