Little River’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold just one old photo of Little River. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Little River was first settled by three Beall men (pronounced Bell). They are thought to have arrived between 1852 and 1856 and are listed on the 1860 Mendocino County census, Big River township: Lloyd (56 years, a farmer born in Tennessee), Samuel (26 years, a farmer born in Missouri), and Harvey (24 years, a stock man born in Missouri). The Bealls joined the Moore Brothers who had preempted land and erected dwellings a short distance from the ocean north of the bay. Shortly after, in 1856, W.H. Kent purchased the Beall tract. The place was known as "Beall's Harbor" and "Kent's Landing" until 1864, when the name was changed to "Littleriver Bay". Ruel Stickney, Silas Coombs, and Tapping Reeves built a mill here, which provided the stimulus for the formation of the town of Little River. The town grew with the success of the mill so that eventually a schoolhouse, post house, shipyard, hot…
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowStart Little River’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Little River’s history is told.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewLittle River and Country Road, lo…, 1905: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Little River, decade by decade
1990s
Nothing in Little River is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Little River has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Jerome B. Ford House in Mendocino, 2.6 miles away.
Little River and the nearest listed places
How a place gets listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Little River and Country Road, looking North, Mendocino County (1905) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.