Two-man Saw Contest

Four Fun-Filled Days on Labor Day Weekend! The tale of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox has always been a favorite with the kids, but here in Fort Bragg, we celebrate the real thing! Paul Bunyan hosts the festival, which celebrates the long history of logging on the Mendocino Coast. This year’s theme,  “All Aboard! Fort Bragg to Willits with Paul & Babe,” commemorates 100 years of the Skunk Train line running from Fort Bragg to Willits. Join us for the fun with logging contests, parades, and the highlight – the crowning of the Belle of the Redwoods, a long-standing tradition.

Mendocino Presbyterian Church Looms over Big River Beach in the Fog. The Church is on the National Historic Register, and has wonderful acoustics for singing.

Having sung in the sanctuary many times now, it’s a wonderful place to enjoy music for an hour — the acoustics are absolutely fabulous, and the choir is sounding great! The program includes Mozart’s Te Deum, written when he was 16. There’s a fun (and challenging) song by P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742), and others by Dvorak and Sibelius. They are also performing a challenging number called “Daemon Irrepit Callidus” by Gyorgy Orban. It’s one of those pieces where you will either love it or hate it, but you will admire the choir for tackling it. All in all, there’s a nice variety of music. The choir will be joined by the Mendocino Brass Ensemble on the final number, and the Trebl’d Women will also be performing.

The Kelley House Museum’s historic walking tours will also take you by the church if you just want to see this lovely old building. They are doing tours this weekend as part of Heritage Days, which runs through the end of May. On Sunday, the walking tour will visit the 150-year-old Masonic Temple in Mendocino. If you’ve ever been to Mendocino, it’s the building with the large white statue on top called Father Time and the Maiden. The tour takes you inside the temple, and you are allowed to take pictures.

About 40 people attended the May 7 event at $75 / person. The atmosphere was upbeat, participants in a good mood and a lot of good conversations going on between the small group. Everyone I spoke to thought it was a great event and can’t wait for next year. The proceeds go to help restoration projects for the Ford House.

When Chris and Tricia Kump open the doors of their new European-style retail bakery October 14, customers will be transported back 100 years in time. And they probably won’t even know it.

Of course, history will not be on the minds of most locals and tourists when they begin lining up at 7:30 a.m. for freshly baked breads, bagels, pastries, and espresso, and at 11:30 for pizzas, soup, salads and no-wait sandwiches.

They’ll be lured by the culinary creations of Chris Kump, a Paris-trained chef, and Philippe Garcia, an artisan baker from Lyon, France.

While Kump, Garcia and their team labor behind the scenes baking the day’s hearth breads and pastries in state of the art ovens, however, one piece of culinary equipment will be the center of everyone’s attention: a large brick façade pizza oven in the retail café.

Although the pizza oven is a relatively new addition to the building, the seasoned bricks are actually over 100 years old, part of the original oven, which began operation as early as 1909, when the Fort Bragg Bakery opened at its current location. To add some perspective, that was just three years after the 1906 Earthquake and subsequent fires destroyed San Francisco (and part of Fort Bragg), and the same year the nearby Point Cabrillo Lighthouse was being completed.

Now, the Rest of the Story
The bricks had been removed by the previous building owner and were thought to have been discarded in a landfill. Instead, they ended up covered with brambles in a backyard where Chris and Tricia rescued them earlier this year. After laboriously scrubbing them clean and careful planning, they returned the venerable bricks to their original home.

“With the help of the Fort Bragg Historical Society, previous owners and workers and a lot of our own research, we discovered that the bakery dates from at least 1909,” explained Tricia. “That is the earliest date we found records for the presence of the brick oven.”
Among those who helped reconstruct the history of the oven and bakery was Don Dutil, known as “Donut Dutil” by his classmates in the 1950’s, when he cooked as many as 120 dozen donuts for mill workers each morning before attending classes at Fort Bragg High.

“Chris and I both love history,” said Tricia, who points with pride to a “history wall” of old photos that she is assembling. The pictures and oven will transport us all to another time. The smell of fresh, hot pizza coming out of the oven will snap us back.

The First Order Fresnel lens, until last year in the original 115-foot lighthouse tower built in 1908, is now in the fog signal building, which serves as a museum and gift shop. The property was closed for seven months while the lens was moved, the tower reinforced and remodeling completed. At one time, the fog signal building housed air compressors and horns to warn sailors away from the treacherous coatline in stormy weather and fog when the light wasn’t visible.

The Fresnel lens is a monster at eight feet tall, six feet wide and six tons. The lens is made up of 666 hand-ground glass prisms all focused toward three sets of double bulls eyes.  These bulls eyes gave the Point Arena Lighthouse its unique “light signature” of two flashes every six seconds. With a navigation chart, a ship captain could time the flashes, and know they were looking at Point Arena Lighthouse.  This incredible optic, which holds an appraised value of over $3.5 million, was once visible some 20 miles out to sea.

Despite efforts to keep it in place, the lens was moved for fear an earthquake would topple the light tower and destroy the priceless lens. Since the lens was removed, the tower has been repaired and reinforced and is open daily for tours – a true bird’s eye view. Point Arena Lighthouse is a must see.

]]> http://www.mendocinofun.com/2009/08/09/point-arena-lighthouse-reopens-after-7-month-renovation/feed/ 0 http://www.mendocinofun.com/2009/08/05/celebrating-fort-bragg/ http://www.mendocinofun.com/2009/08/05/celebrating-fort-bragg/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:09:35 +0000 dff http://www.mendocinofun.com/?p=1294 The Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast Historical Society began operating the Guest House Museum in August 1999. To celebrate their first ten years at the museum, they are putting on a number of special events during August.

On August 7, First Friday, 5:30 pm • Open House at the Museum. All are welcome.

The main celebration is Saturday, August 8, from 10 am – 3 pm at the Guest House Museum.

• 10-11 David Foucheaux will review the history of the Guest House over the years from 1857 to the present.
• 11-12 Michael Stenberg will tell the story of the California Western Railroad from a line hauling logs to a recreational route, The Skunk.
• 12 to 1:30 Lunch Break
• 1:30 pm Presentation of the Alder Thurman Historical Contribution Award. An award to some one who had made a contribution to local history. We expect to make this an annual presentation.
• 2 pm An entertaining presentation by Katie Tahja and Marty Simpson of the racy side of life early in the last century. They come in the persona of Madame Kate and J. D. Johnson, a businessman in Mendocino, to tell the tale.

They will round out the month with some walks in historic areas of Fort Bragg:

• August 16, Sunday, 11 am, Cemetery Walk, Meet at Rose Memorial Park. Cemetery Walks led by David Foucheaux.
• August 22, Saturday, 11 am, Historic Downtown Walk, Meet at the Museum. Walk led by Betty Carr.
• August 30, Sunday, 11 am, Cemetery Walk. Meet at Rose Memorial Park.

The Guest House Museum is located at 343 North Main Street in Fort Bragg, CA, right next to the Skunk Train Depot.