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Original September 20, 1915 Bargain and Sale Deed transferring a town lot in the original plat of Willits (then still commonly called Willitsville), Mendocino County, California.
The People
Mary E. Rowe (Mary Evelyn Laird Rowe, 1858–1940) previously owned the lot and conveyed it to the Charleses on February 11, 1915. Mary and her husband Horace Doolittle Rowe ran Rowe’s Station, a well-known stagecoach stop on old Sherwood Road just outside Willits. It served travelers on the Cloverdale-to-Eureka route. In 1900 they sold their timbered station property to the Northwestern Redwood Company and moved into town. By 1910 Mary was widowed and still living in Little Lake Township. She later moved to Sausalito and is buried in the Willits Cemetery. This deed captures a small piece of her later in-town holdings.
L. B. Charles and Josie M. Charles, his wife, held the lot for only seven months before selling it.
The parcel is part of Block 4 of the original Town of Willits / official plat of Willitsville (on file with the Mendocino County Recorder).
Description:
• Begins at the Northwest corner of Block 4
• East along the north line of Block 4 — 91½ feet
• South — 66⅔ feet
• West, parallel with Mendocino Street — 91½ feet
• North along the west side of the block — 66⅔ feet back to the start
Approximate size: about 6,100 square feet.
Mendocino Street (now East/West Mendocino Street or Avenue) still exists in Willits. Block 4 of the original townsite sits in the historic core of town, near the commercial district and the railroad. The same year this deed was signed (1915), the Northwestern Pacific Railroad built the now-historic Willits Depot. The lot therefore dates to the town’s railroad-and-lumber boom period.
A genuine piece of Willits local history tying together a former stage-stop operator, early town-lot owners, and the original street grid that still shapes downtown Willits today.
Please see all photos for details and feel free to make an offer
