Above: Photo by H.H. Wonacott, Parkins Collection, Mendocino County Museum.
History reverberates through this building with the ghosts of many shoppers and merchants past.
Hiram Willits purchased a store at this site from Kirk Brier and continued running it until 1883, when he sold the business to Cerf & Lobree, who in turn sold to Irvine & Muir.
Charles Irvine had arrived in Willits in 1880 and ran his own general store. He entered into the mercantile business with Henry Muir in 1882, and in 1901 they created the Irvine & Muir Company. Later they opened a lumber company with two mills. They ran their grand store according to departments looked after by “attentive and efficient clerks.” ( 1. )
Left: A "Souvenier Letter" from the Willits News Depot, O.M. Simonson, Proprietor, Willits, Cal. Depicting scenes from the 1906 earthquake and its effects on Willits buildings. Mendocino County Museum.
( 1. ) Aurelius Carpenter and Percy Millberry, History of Mendocino and Lake Counties (Historic Record Co.,1914), p.669.
In 1901 when fire destroyed much of Main Street, the Irvine & Muir store survived, and the proprietors generously gave away food, clothes, and bedding to those who had lost so much.
Irvine died in 1914. Muir started construction of the current building in 1921, leveling the lot in back to put in a warehouse there and a truck drive-through, north to south, which still allows for loading bales of hay. Offices upstairs overlooked customers and staff below. In December, 1921, 1500 people attended Muir’s celebratory opening reception. Othel Sawyers, just a boy then, remembered that stores in Willits generally “weren’t too good,” but “Muir had the best store. He kept it up.” ( 2. )
Muir leased out the business in 1933 and then sold the building in 1943. Older Willits residents remembered shopping in the building’s different manifestations, when it became Johnson’s, owned by the father of Willits resident Earlene Johnson Whittaker, with several stores inside, including Johnson’s Hardware Store, the Groceteria, and the Toggery for clothing.
In later years J.C. Penny took over the whole building. Some fondly recalled the vacuum chute that sent messages and money hurtling from registers downstairs to offices upstairs.
Later, as the Country Mall, the building again housed various stores, including Sidney’s shoe store, Garcia’s Mexican food, the Candy Kitchen, a natural food store, and a drugstore.
( 2. ) Mendocino County Remembered: An Oral History, Vol. II, p.174, by Bruce Levene, William Bradd, Lana Krasner, Gloria Petrykowski, and Rosalie Zucker (Mendocino County Historical Society, Ukiah, 1977).
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In 1981 the Willits Planning Commission designated the site and structure as Willits Landmark #1, and it was named as a State of California Point of Historical Interest.
“J.D. Redhouse did an awesome rehabilitation,” said former city planner Frank Howard. It took nearly two years to fix all the aging electrical and plumbing and to remove all the interior plywood structures.
Willits can be proud of having a “mercantile” all over again.
Left: Contemporary photo of JD Redhouse by Steve Eberhard, courtesy of Steve Eberhard.
Created in collaboration with Kim Bancroft and Judi Berdis and based the 2016 Mendocino County Museum exhibit "Main Street Willits: Then and Now. "Text prepared by Kim Bancroft and select photos prepared by Judi Berdis. We are grateful for their ongoing efforts to preserve our local history.
Special thanks to Kiersten Hanna for project support and assistance.