McNear: Saving Mendocino’s headlands from development took a citizens campaign

The Mendocino Headlands stretch along the south side of Mendocino’s Main Street and the western border of town. For over a century, over 20 buildings and a lumberyard took up much of the space along Main Street, west of the Ford House. The last of these buildings were demolished by 1960.

Auggie Heeser owned much of the empty land west of town. In the late 1950s, Heeser donated some land to the State Fish and Wildlife Department under the condition it remain an open space. Heeser’s cousin, Al Nichols, sold the remaining land to the Parks Department in the 1970s.