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Posts published by “Malcolm Macdonald”

Patient Advocate

I've written about the Mendocino Coast Healthcare District so much and for such a long time that some readers might have leaped to the false assumption that I, too, work in some part of the…

Albion’s South Side, 1908

June, 1908, proved a record breaking month at the Albion mill. San Francisco was still rebuilding after the great quake of '06. The mill and its timber lands had been purchased by Southern Pacific less…

Bears Now & Then

Most late afternoons or evenings I walk down a half mile of hillside to the bottomland next to the Albion River to check on the cows. They provide a bit of Cow-vid entertainment almost daily: a…

Hospitality Center Permit Violations

Covid-19 is scary, but have you ever dealt with Lynelle Johnson, Carole White, and Hospitality Center? That was the opening line of an April 25th piece in the AVA. As Bob Dylan sang, “things have…

Tinker, Trader, Piano Tuner (Part 2)

See last week's piece for details from the dry summer of 1900 that led to jeweler, horse trader, and piano tuner J.E. King's killing of seventy-year-old farmer Samuel Church on the Sonoma-Marin border. King had…

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 Springs ranch they had little idea the season would turn deadly. They traveled…

Found Object from 1962

Life on the Mendocino Coast was a different affair as the year 1962 began. Montgomery Ward had a store on the corner of 200 East Redwood in Fort Bragg. One could walk almost effortlessly north…

The Big River Mystery

Intrigued by the unknown? Does a wisp of mist rolling across the moon's shadow or the hint of heat rising up from a bog on an otherwise chilled winter's eve pique your curiosity? At this…

The Demise of Mamalcoosh

Last time we recounted the killing of a Yuki warrior named Shemia by his fellow Yuki, Mamalcoosh. The piece also discussed how their names were anglicized to “Indian Charley” and “Billy Malmaquist,” respectively. The only…

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