STAGECOACHES IN MENDOCINO CITY

The Mendocino Beacon, Mendocino, CA

Kelley House Museum Column

Mendocino City: The Best Stagecoach Town in California

—Dateline: published April, 26, 2012 by Molly Dwyer

On a damp February day in 1886, an Allman stagecoach made its way from Ukiah to Mendocino. It followed the High Gap route that wound past Orr Springs and the headwaters of Big River. When George Allman drew his team to a halt, he wasn’t that far from the infamous Robber’s Roost, where the likes of Black Bart often hid. But the brake-beam had been giving him trouble and he wanted to inspect it before heading down the steep, narrow grade in front of him.

Allman owned the stage, and made his living hauling passengers, mail, and money from Cloverdale and Ukiah to the bustling metropolis of Mendocino City (as they called it in those days). Mendocino City had a reputation for being the “best stage town” in California. It was home to seven hotels, two general stores, a butcher shop, a livery, a pharmacy, several saloons, two banks, and a number of Chinese washhouses. It was a commercial center, fed by a booming lumber industry. Coaches arrived daily.

Silver passed as legal tender in Mendocino, but the locals preferred gold. Twenty-dollar gold pieces were known as Big River Bits, and paper money, which almost no one would accept, they called shinplaster.

Coyotes wreaked havoc among the sheep herds in the area, and mountain lions and 500-pound brown bears were not uncommon. On occasion, valuable cows even made news in the Mendocino Beacon by falling off ocean-side cliffs.    

The sparsely worded Beacon story about Allman doesn't say if he felt misgivings as he passed the reins to the fellow who sat up top the stage with him that day—one of the five passengers aboard. What it does report, is that the horses “became frightened” and threw Allman to the ground as they bolted down a “steep hill.” The runaway team stopped only after the stage overturned against a bank. Allman was “considerably bruised” in the incident, and two of his passengers “seriously hurt.” 

George Allman was a businessman, heavily invested in his stage company. A risky undertaking: he’d paid somewhere between $1000 and $1500 (about $30,000 in today’s currency) for each of his coaches. Harnesses cost another $100 or more, and it took about 55 horses to run his 12-trip per week operation. He had to keep his animals in hay and corn. He had to pay drivers and a stable crew. The leftovers he spent on advertising.

Like his competitors, Allman depended on his contract with Wells Fargo to say afloat. A good mail contract could buy him four stagecoaches.

Allman’s stagecoach could carry 12 passengers when two rode up top, and the journey was hardly a pleasant one. They faced ceaseless rocking (it was reportedly a bit like being at sea), and sat in close, crowded quarters, subject to bad weather, mud slides, downed trees and other delays. They had to ford rivers and streams, and stop to open dozens of gates.

Profits depended on weather, road conditions, animal health, driver health, accidents, and hold-ups. Drivers needed to be experienced. When they weren’t fighting the weather, the road, or runaway horses, they had to be on the lookout for bandits.

Allman, like any good driver, knew all the latest gossip and the news from San Francisco. He dropped off packages and delivered messages to the homesteads along the way. He had hoped to make it as far as Comptche the day his coach overturned, because there was a blacksmith there who had the tools to fix the brake beam.

The Beacon doesn’t report how long it took—in a day without cell phones, Triple A, or ambulances—for George Allman to get back on the road. In one story, recounting a similar accident a few years later, the mail from Ukiah didn’t arrive until well after 2 am the following day when an “accident befell the stage” only a mile from its destination.

Piecing together Mendocino history is a bit like sewing a patchwork quilt, but for anyone who wants to learn more about the olden days on the coast, the archives at the Kelley House Museum are brimming with fascinating blocks of colorful and quirky detail.