The Fort Behind Fort Bragg
In this moment of shifting historical identities — the Fort Bragg City Council has taken up the question of whether to change…
Policing the Police
Ukiah isn’t Detroit. Or Chicago, where two years ago the city spent more than $113 million on lawsuits involving police misconduct. But…
Journal of the Plague Year (#14)
Berkeley, CA June 22, 2020 — The Fusion Centers were working overtime this past week. You probably didn’t know. Reading daily newspapers…
Early Black Life in the Anderson Valley
Daniel Jeans was born a slave in 1835 Missouri. After the Civil War he made his way to California and to the…
Kayo & Kamala
When Terence Hallinan asked me to be his press secretary in December, 1999, I was 58 and in my 13th year as managing…
Biloxi Days: Camille: She Warn’t No Lady
While many of my peers were celebrating at Woodstock, from August 15 to August 17 of 1969, I was defending America from…
Bill Witherell: Friend & Neighbor
This reporter and his consort arrived in Navarro on 31 March, 1971. Over prior months we had rented a small cabin above…
North Coast Incline Railways
One of my favorite discoveries studying history is how creativity and ingenuity solved problems, like moving really BIG things. Incline railways were…
Dams Be Gone
Somewhere in my mother’s photo albums is a picture taken by my father of the teenage me standing on a viewing platform…
Tinker, Trader, Piano Tuner
July, 1900, evolved into a hot, dry month in Northern California. As thirty-eight-year-old J.E. King and his wife left their small Skaggs…
A Story of Hope
Hope. With recent events including strife and illness making the headlines in America, hope is something that has been scarce in my…
Navarro, the Milltown in the Redwoods
I wonder how many isolated rural milltowns there were in California when the Wendling mill started production in 1907. I say dozens,…