A heated environmental controversy over protecting Spotted Owl habitat in dwindling old growth forests was raging on the North Coast when the late Mendocino County Supervisor Jim Eddie suggested a sleep over in a family cabin on remote Foster Mountain.
“Let’s go see, and hear, for ourselves,” suggested Eddie to then county administrator Mike Scannell, H. Peter Klein, the legal adviser to the Board of Supervisors, and myself, a journalist.
We met at the Eddie Ranch in Potter Valley one afternoon in the 1980s, loaded our gear in the family jeep and headed into the rugged back country of the Mendocino National Forest. We arrived in time for drinks while Eddie prepared dinner. After, and aided by moonlight, the search for the sight and sounds of the Spotted Owl began in the surrounding forests.
The adventure was the mark of Jim Eddie, a man who liked to explore issues before drawing his own conclusions. Eddie, a county supervisor for 20 years, was a rancher and descendant of early white settlers of Potter Valley. He was conservative politically but he always took the time to listen to opposing opinions, discuss ramifications, and reflect on the outcomes before he acted.
“Jim was a plain-speaking man, who always listened to others,” recalled friend Barbara Hopper, a 70-year friend.
Hopper, a retired school principal, was among a small group of friends who went to Reno with Jim Eddie and his late wife Judy Dightman when they were married in 1959. On Saturday, July 26, Jim Eddie will be interred next to Judy in the family plot in the historic Potter Valley Cemetery. Judy Eddie died in 1995.
“Jim was a man of his word, and a most loyal friend,” said Hopper.
Hopper said, “He loved people and his community, and he cared about their welfare. Jim always wanted what was best for Potter Valley, the people of Mendocino County, and the state of California.”
Eddie often was the swing vote in the 1980s-90s on a Board of Supervisors deeply divided between the conservative forces of the past, and progressive factions supported by newcomers in the county.
Eddie was not afraid to take a stand in the face of stiff opposition from either side.
Eddie, for example, cast his lot with former liberal Supervisors Norman de Vall and Dan Hamburg to block a controversial Vintner’s Village convention center and shopping mall project proposed by Parducci Winery interests on agricultural land north of Ukiah.
Eddie believed the preservation of the county’s prime agricultural lands was the core issue, and not the promotion of economic development. Business and political leaders in the Ukiah Valley were appalled and launched a failed recall campaign targeting Hamburg. They resented Eddie’s swing vote for years.
Eddie offered no apologies.
“I voted my conscience. I believed in protecting the county’s agricultural lands, and I have no regrets about my vote,” Eddie said after.
Eddie’s folksy ways, kindness, and sense of humor earned him respect even among his political opponents.
“My dad was a man of convictions but people mattered most. He really worked at bridging the gaps,” said daughter Katie Eddie Delbar.
Former Del Norte County Assessor Gerald Cochran worked with Eddie on timber tax related issues, post Proposition 13 fallout for North Coast government agencies, and again when both served on the Board of Directors for the Golden Gate Bridge District.
Cochran agreed that Eddie was a remarkable ability to collaborate with regional officials no matter the politics.
“Jim was a good Republican, and I was a Democrat. We would talk, and more times than not reach a consensus on what might be best for everyone, and not just the ‘party,’” said Cochran.
Their friendship deepened during their years together on the Golden Gate Bridge board. “We would meet in San Francisco and have breakfast, lunch or dinner together, and talk.”
Cochran recalled Eddie’s long tenure as a bridge director, and board president.
“Jim, as board president, was the last person to symbolically pay a toll to cross the Golden Gate. He led the board efforts to install all electronic tolling,” said Cochran.
Cochran also remembered Eddie’s role in guiding seismic improvements to the iconic structure.
“I remember one night when we stood at the north end of the bridge and stared down at the water below while they replaced 10 x 25-foot sections of pavement after completing seismic work. It was impressive,” said Cochran.
Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey, a former newspaper columnist and spokesperson for the SMART train service between Sonoma and Marin counties, recalled in an online post how Eddie was easy to work with.
“I got to know Jim in the early days when he was on the SMART Board of Directors and I was a member of the agency’s small staff,” said Coursey. He described Eddie as a “gentleman who treated everyone - colleagues, staff, public, critics - with respect. He served with humor and humility.”
Coursey said, “I’ve known many elected leaders over the past 50 years, and he is one of those I’ve remembered as a good example to follow.”
While Eddie gained widespread recognition in North Coast politics, the legacy Eddie Ranch, the surrounding Potter Valley community, and Mendocino County’s rich history was always at the core of Jim Eddie’s life.
Jim Eddie was a dedicated supporter of the Mendocino County Museum.
Former Museum Director Mark Rawitsch, whose work helped the county museum earn statewide recognition, said he was hired by Eddie and other board members before passage of the tax-cutting Proposition 13. Rawitsch recalled he had been warned by the county administrative staff at the time by “I would be fired and the museum would be closed if Proposition 13 passed.”
That didn’t happen because of Jim Eddie.
Rawitsch said Eddie offered a much more balanced and long-term view, explaining to his fellow board members and administrators, “If we don’t work together to preserve, understand and share our history in places like the museum, we will lose our community’s ability to understand the possibilities of the future.”
Rawitsch also remembered the time when the county museum coordinated the Mendocino County Courthouse mural project in the late 1970s.
“Jim made sure that we added the images of a steer and lamb to the mural painted in the entry hall to the Board of Supervisors chambers,” Rawitsch recalled. He wanted all elements of the county’s agricultural heritage represented.
Former museum curator Sandy Metzler remembered Eddie regularly holding office hours in a room at the Willits museum, where “ranchers, business owners, farmers, and Class K Back-to-the-Landers would come to share their ideas, complaints, and observations about their lives and the county’s role in them.”
“Jim would meet generously with people from all sides and really listen! Everyone trusted and respected him! Quite a feat for anyone elected to office. As for me, when no constituent showed up, I would get to talk to him about his family history, sheep (as I was raising them, too), cattle (as my family in Paso Robles were cattle ranchers), and current events. It was a real honor for me to get to know Jim Eddie,” said Metzler.
Rounding up cows, harvesting hay on pastureland, growing corn, and cutting timber in the surrounding hills was the focus of Eddie family life.
Jim Eddie valued hard work, community connections, and old-fashioned fun. He represented the fourth generation of two Potter Valley pioneer families: the Eddies and Dashiells.
Eddie was born at home to Leona Dashiell Eddie and Clyde Raymond Eddie on May 21, 1935. Jim spent his entire life living on the ranch.
Childhood friend Sherman Kirchmeier, a former lumber executive on the North Coast, Idaho and Maine, recalled the bucolic growing up years he and Jim Eddie and “a gang of us guys” spent together.
“We hunted, fished, and swam together. We roped deer who came down to feed in the cow pastures at night, and then turned them loose,” Kirchmeier recalled. He remembered a night when Jim Eddie tipped over Mother Leona Eddie’s new truck, and how Eddie and his teenage friends tried to figure out what to do next.
“We knew there was going to be hell to pay,” said Kirchmeier.
Jim Eddie’s mother Leona Dashiell Eddie was a formidable family member, who could ride a horse all day, round up cows, and shoot a threatening bear in the woods, if necessary, even in her later years. Jim’s father Clyde Eddie died in 1949 when his son was only fourteen. Leona Eddie kept the family ranch going before eventually turning it over to Jim Eddie to run.
For Jim Eddie, the Potter Valley ranch was his center.
William Eddie, a Missouri farmer, in 1859 purchased squatters’ rights to 157 acres in the heart of Potter.
William Eddie later married Cynthia Vann in 1868 and together raised nine children on land where they farmed pears, apples, corn, oats, and wheat, according to family history.
Jim Eddie was a great grandson.
The ranch over the years expanded into a cow-calf operation that includes leased forest service parcels in the surrounding mountains. Today the Eddie Ranch management focuses on “reduce, reuse, and recycle” practices, including using and repairing farm equipment 50 years or older.
In the kitchen of the Eddie family farmhouse is a simple brass plaque set in the floor. It reminds family, friends, and visitors that the ranch was founded in 1859.
In September 2009, the Eddie family hosted a celebration commemorating 150 years of the Eddie Ranch.
Katie Eddie and her husband Mike Delbar, a former county supervisor and current CEO of California Rangeland Trust, in recent years have shared the ancestral home with Jim Eddie.
The Eddie Ranch will continue under family ownership, Katie Delbar said.
Jim Eddie’s son James Jr., Katie, and second daughter Jan Fairbairn and their families are all engaged in the family ranching operation.
“None of have us strayed far. The Eddie Ranch will carry on,” said Katie Delbar.
(All photos provided by the Eddie family.)
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