The Great Depression hit Mendocino County hard, and like many other areas, residents felt the effects before the “Great Crash” in 1929. Following World War I, farmers began struggling as prices plummeted and remained low. One Point Arena resident claimed, “We have a theory that the real depression started on the ranch way before 1929, and by 1929 we were starting to recover, except that we didn’t have much of an income.”
In the late 1920s, construction nationwide began to slow down and demand for lumber declined. The Glen Blair mill closed in 1925 and the Albion mill in 1928. After the economic crash, this decline became even sharper. Caspar and Mendocino lumber mills closed in the early ‘30s, and the Fort Bragg mill laid off many workers due to production cuts. The value of products manufactured in Mendocino County (primarily lumber) fell from five million dollars in 1929 to two million in 1933. The average annual wage for a worker in the county fell from $1,864 to $878.
People found creative methods to cope with the difficult times. In 1932, the Mendocino Beacon reported that one unemployed mill worker attempted counterfeiting dollar bills and fifty cent pieces. Some tried their hand at bootlegging alcohol. Prohibition had been law in several communities on the coast, including Mendocino, since 1909, 10 years before the 18th Amendment was passed. Rum-runners were found off the coast, and an estimated $15,000 worth of liquor-making equipment was found in Barton Gulch near the Navarro River.
To put food on their tables, people relied more on hunting, gathering and gardening. Jake Jacobs remembers, “If somebody saw a deer track they talked about it for weeks, that there was at least one live deer left in the county. And as far as jack rabbits, if they didn’t have the boils, they went into the pot.”
Seaweed, blackberries, and huckleberries were common foods people gathered to sell and eat. Young men went into the redwoods to trap raccoons and bobcats to sell furs, which didn’t bring in a lot of money. Emery Escola claims to have made two or three dollars on furs in a good month. Clarence Simpson claims to have made double that “bagging” gophers for Daisy MacCallum, whose rose garden was frequently overrun with the rodents. Clarence may catch four or five gophers for $1 each.
Mendocino County residents had to adapt quickly to make ends meet. It was only when the New Deal programs hit Mendocino County in the mid-1930s that conditions slowly began turning around.
Averee McNear is the curator at the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino, Calif.
So, basically nothings changed