Oak Fire (2020)

Mendocino County ( ; Mendocino, Spanish for "of Mendoza") is a county located on the North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,601. The county seat is Ukiah.Mendocino County consists wholly of the Ukiah, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (μSA) for the purposes of the U.S. Census Bureau. It is located approximately equidistant from the San Francisco Bay Area and California/Oregon border, separated from the Sacramento Valley to the east by the California Coast Ranges. While smaller areas of redwood forest are found further south, it is the southernmost California county to be included in the World Wildlife Fund's Pacific temperate rainforests ecoregion, the largest temperate rainforest ecoregion on the planet.The county is noted for its distinctive Pacific Ocean coastline, its location along California's "Lost Coast", Redwood forests, wine production, microbrews, and liberal views about the use of cannabis and support for its legalization. In 2009, it was estimated that roughly one-third of the economy was based on the cultivation of marijuana.The notable historic and recreational attraction of the "Skunk Train" connects Fort Bragg with Willits in Mendocino County via a steam-locomotive engine, along with other vehicles. Mendocino is one of three Northern California counties to make up the "Emerald Triangle", along with Humboldt and Trinity counties.

Cedar Creek is an 11.2-mile-long (18.0 km) tributary of the South Fork Eel River in Mendocino County in the U.S. state of California. The creek begins southeast of Red Mountain, at an elevation of 778 feet (237 m). It makes an S-curve west-northwest then bends sharply south, dropping into the valley of the South Fork Eel. The confluence is south of the city of Leggett, on the river's right bank. The only named tributary of Cedar Creek is Little Cedar Creek, a headwaters tributary. Big Dann Creek joins the South Fork Eel on the same bank, just upstream of Cedar Creek, while the next major tributary downstream of Cedar is Rock Creek. The Cedar Creek watershed is rugged and has few tributaries.

Willits Municipal Airport (FAA LID: O28), also known as Ells Field, is a public airport located three miles (4.6 km) northwest of Willits, serving Mendocino County, California, USA. This general aviation airport covers 75 acres and has one runway.

Brooktrails is a census-designated place and unincorporated community in Mendocino County, California, United States. It shares ZIP code 95490 with Willits. The population was 3,632 at the 2020 census.

Longvale is an unincorporated community in Mendocino County, California. It is located on Outlet Creek adjacent to the Northwestern Pacific Railroad and U.S. Route 101 9.5 miles (15 km) south-southeast of Laytonville, at an elevation of 1191 feet (363 m).A post office operated at Longvale from 1911 to 1958. The post office was located in a store on the original alignment of US 101 across from Camp Piercy, near a bridge to Andersonia. The area was primarily an "auto camp" for tourists driving through the Redwood Empire on US 101.

Willits High School is a high school located in Willits, California. The school first held classes in September 1904 in a room on the second floor of the Maize Mercantile Building on the corner of Main and Commercial Streets. Three years later, a new high school was built in the city's west hills at Pine and Maple Streets and classes were held there until a fire consumed the structure in November 1928. The next year construction commenced on a new campus at the school's present location near the center of town on North Main Street. It was first remodeled in 1958 and again more recently in 1988. In 1990, it was recognized as a California Distinguished School by the California Department of Education. The inaugural graduating class in 1904 consisted of just four students, while in 2008 that number had grown more than thirtyfold to 123, in relative proportion to the population growth of the community in that time.

The Larsen Family House, at 84 State St. in Willits, California, in Mendocino County was built in 1904. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. It is Queen Anne in style. In 1994, it was occupied by Kimberly's Jewelry.

The murders of Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble are the unsolved abduction and murder of two teenage girls—aged 15 and 14 respectively— who disappeared after leaving their homes in Forestville, California, to visit a shopping mall in Santa Rosa on December 16, 1978; their remains were discovered in July 1979 approximately 80 mi (130 km) north of Forestville, concealed within duct-taped garbage bags and buried within an embankment of a heavily overgrown woodland area beside a remote section of Highway 20, 12 mi (19 km) from the city of Willits. Due to the advanced state of decomposition of the girls' remains, the specific cause of death of each victim has never been established, although their deaths have always been considered to be a homicide. Furthermore, Graham's body was mistakenly identified as that of a male until genetic testing proved otherwise. The bodies of Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble would remain unidentified until November 2015, when their identities were confirmed via the use of DNA profiling. The case itself remains one of the oldest cold cases within Mendocino County.

The Dr. Raymond Babcock House, at 96 S. Humboldt St. in Willits, California, in Mendocino County, California, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The listing included three contributing buildings, a contributing structure, and a contributing object. It is a two-story, wood-frame house which was built by Roy Whited, who designed and built many houses in Willits. It is vernacular Classical Revival in style. It has an L-shaped veranda, partly recessed, around Humboldt Street and Mendocino Street sides. It has gables in both directions, with boxed cornices. It originally was a one-story house with Queen Anne elements. In 1919, Dr. Babcock built a one-room hospital behind the house. The upper story was added in the 1930s. The property includes a collection of bells, collected by Dr. Babcock during the 1930s through 1960s. A redwood frame called the Babcock Bell Tower, designed and built by Dr. and Mrs. Babcock in 1945, supports an assortment of town, school, locomotive, ship and team bells, almost all from Mendocino County. It also includes the Santa Rosa town bell from Sonoma County.

Willits (formerly Little Lake and Willitsville) is a city in Mendocino County, California, United States. It is located about 20 miles (32 km) north-northwest of Ukiah, at an elevation of 1,391 feet (424 m). The population was 4,988 at the 2020 census. Willits is at the center of Mendocino County and at the beginning of the county's extensive redwood forests as approached by Highway 101 from the south. An arch stands in the center of Willits featuring the slogans "Gateway to the Redwoods" and "Heart of Mendocino County". The arch is the repurposed second version of the Reno Arch. Reno donated the arch to Willits in 1995.

Willits station is a train station in Willits, California. It is the east end of California Western Railroad, which operates Skunk Train excursion service between Willits and Fort Bragg.

Shake City is an archaic placename in Mendocino County, California, United States. It is located on the California Western Railroad, 6.25 miles (10 km) west-northwest of Willits, at an elevation of 528 feet (161 m). Circa 1916, a kind of logging operation called a bark camp was located at or near Shake City. For a handful of years in the mid-1930s, the settlement supported a Mendocino County baseball team called the Shake City Loggers. During the Great Depression years, there was enough activity at the logging camp that it attracted vagrants: one unemployed man was charged with robbing a cabin near Shake City, and an "unknown tramp" walking from Fort Bragg was killed on the railroad tracks. Famed forestry professor Emanuel Fritz photographed a 17 foot (5.2 m)-diameter redwood stump from a tree logged near Shake City. There was a railroad tie production facility at Shake City in 1937. The railroad trestle at Shake City burned in 1941 but was promptly repaired. By 1960, Shake City was still a name on a map but its history was a mystery to a Petuluma newspaper columnist. In 1967, Union Lumber Company owned timber stands near Shake City.