Born in Utah in 1891, Edna Frances Cobb Gorden (nee: Carpenter) moved to Cloverdale around 1920 with her first husband, Nelvin Cobb. From the time she arrived until her death in 1984, Edna was a shining star in the community and her accomplishments were many and varied. Her husband, a mortician, was Rotary Club of Cloverdale President in 1928 and served as Mayor from 1925 to 1933.

Edna was an accomplished musical actress who not only studied dance, she gave lessons. Her students were known for the beautifully costumed dances they performed for the annual Citrus Fair. For seven years, she also played first violin in the Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra. After she and Cobb divorced, she married George Gorden, a lineman for the telephone company, in 1936.

A natural student, Edna had made a study of undertaking and embalming, not because she expected to make use of it, but because she had the opportunity and wanted to understand more. Little did she realize this would become her profession.

The Edna F. Gorden Funeral Parlor, with its furniture store up front, was located at 231 N. Cloverdale Blvd. Under appointment by then-coroner Fred Young of Healdsburg, she was a deputy county coroner, qualified to conduct
inquests and perform other work of the office. One of the first female morticians in the Western United States, she served the Cloverdale community for more than 35 years. She wrote historical articles for the Cloverdale Reveille and her hand-written Funeral Records can be found at the Cloverdale History Center.

After WWII, Edna received an award from the Marine Corps for providing information on ship movements vital to national security as the war began. According to the 1940 census, Edna only had an 8th grade education. Can you imagine a mortician today who didn’t even have a high school diploma?

Pick’s Drive-in has been a Cloverdale landmark since it was built in 1923 at the height of Prohibition. The building was originally a Reed and Bell’s Root Beer stand. Until 1945 when the franchise agreement expired, Reed and Powell was a franchise of A&W Root Beer.

Sometime during the 40’s, the business was purchased by Lynmarie Hoyer’s grandparents, Mayo and Johnnie Mae Pickard, who had operated a café at the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Santa Rosa.

The Pickards moved to Cloverdale, changed the name of the root beer stand to Pick’s, and started selling hamburgers made with the same secret relish recipe that had made them so successful in Santa Rosa.

Claudia Clow purchased Pick’s, building and all, around 1990 and was very “hands on” in the business until she sold it in 2016 to current owners, David and Debby Alioto, who also own Healdsburger in Healdsburg.

This past March, a new Cloverdale homeowner by the name of Justin Beth rescued a vintage Pick’s sign that Claudia had offered for free on Facebook Marketplace. The sign, which was believed to have blown over in a wind storm, was bolted to a large metal frame with square headed bolts on the restaurant’s rooftop. An electrician by trade, Justin’s plan was to clean it up, leaving the patina, restore the electrical internals and hang it up.

For many Cloverdalians, their first job was behind the counter at Pick’s. Birthdays and first dates have been celebrated there. It’s often a “must stop” location for travelers passing through town. A few years ago, the daughter of a couple who met and courted at Pick’s, brought them back for their 50th wedding anniversary.

As long as folks crave a great burger and a touch of nostalgia, Pick’s is destined to remain a popular gathering spot for locals and tourists alike for many years to come.

Like this year, many of Cloverdale’s past Citrus Fairs have been held on weekends that included Valentine’s Day, a day synonymous with love and romance. Over the years, at least three couples have exchanged wedding vows during the Fair, albeit none of them on Feb. 14.

The first was on Feb. 22, 1925, between 19-year-old Eunice Studebaker of Philo and 25-year-old Fred McGinsey of Boonville. The Sunday afternoon ceremony on the pavilion stage was performed by Rev. Leland Rathbone of the Cloverdale Congregational Church. In addition to the license, ring and minister’s fee, the Citrus Fair provided the bride’s gown and local merchants gave them gifts of household articles and other necessities. Following a brief honeymoon at McCray’s Resort, the couple made their home in Boonville.

The public wedding was such a great draw, the Fair Board tried to do it again in 1931. Despite extensive publicity by both the Citrus Fair and the Chamber of Commerce, including promises of many wonderful gifts, no follow up articles were found indicating a wedding actually took place that year.

The 1940 Citrus Fair, however, culminated on Feb. 25 with the “Leap Year” wedding of 22-year-old Santa Rosa residents Lexie Walker and Clarence Marlatt. The Chamber provided the bride’s trousseau and the young couple received more than $200 worth of merchandise from sponsoring merchants.

It would be thirty-four years before the next public wedding was held. On Feb. 16, the final day of the 1974 Citrus Fair, Sacramento residents Dick Cross and Jo Ann Arnold tied the knot under the Happy Time Circus big top. Cross, the circus’ musician and a good friend of Happy the Clown, was able to fulfill his long-standing desire to be married in Happy’s tent. The bride-to-be had always wanted to be a Valentine’s Day bride but was willing to settle for two days later.
The wedding took place at 5:30 p.m., right after the Wrist Wrestling Matches in the auditorium. Everyone was invited to “come as you are – clown suits not required.”

Ever wonder why we call our fair grounds the Cloverdale CITRUS Fair, when you don’t see that many citrus trees about town or on surrounding farmlands? Well, in the 1880s, there were 1170 acres in fruit including 500 orange trees and 2000 fig trees. The new fairgrounds, established in 1892, was named in honor of those citrus groves. In all, 95,000 lbs. of fruit were shipped from our depot on the San Francisco and No. Pacific Railroad to markets far and wide. This included 3885 acres of grapes producing 337,250 gallons of wine.

There is a 100+ year old orange tree on the grounds of what is now the Cloverdale History Museum. It was planted by Isaac Shaw in the garden of the Gould Shaw House, built in 1862. And the oranges are delicious!

Russian Riverkeeper’s mission is to inspire the community to protect the Russian River forever and they have been fighting since 1993 to ensure a thriving river system and your rights to fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters.

The Russian River is 110 miles long with headwaters North of Ukiah, near Willits, that flow southward to Forestville where it runs west and empties into the Pacific at Jenner. The watershed area is roughly 1500 square miles, with large dams Lake Mendocino in Ukiah and Lake Sonoma near Healdsburg. In Potter Valley a PG&E hydroelectric facility diverts water from the Eel River into the East Fork of the Russian River.

The Russian River was first known among the Southern Pomo as Ashokawna, “East water place” or “water to the East;” later an 1843 Spanish Land Grant referred to it as Rio Grande. The river gets its current name from the Russians of the Russian American Company who settled in Fort Ross just North of Jenner in the early 1800’s and explored the river using native Inuit’s from the far North to trap fur bearing river otters and sea otters off the coast. After the Russian American Company left Fort Ross, the next wave of settlers were drawn to the plentiful redwoods and logging became the principal industry in the watershed, with mills and railroads sprouting up to cut and transport centuries old redwood to the San Francisco Bay Area to construct buildings and ships. The Russian River drew people since the first Native American settlers because of its bountiful fish populations and abundance of basket making materials. The Russian River is still home to endangered and threatened runs of Chinook Salmon, Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout.

Today the Russian River is a cornerstone to the local community and the greater San Francisco Bay area, providing water to over 600,000 residents and summer recreation to almost a million visitors a year. The Russian River’s recreational opportunities to swim, sunbathe, float a tube, canoe or kayak, fish, bird watch, relax, or just get away and connect with nature have drawn visitors and summer residents from the northern California for over a 100 years.

For more information: info@russianriverkeeper.org.

Originally called Musalacon High School, Johanna Echols-Hansen Continuation High School – JEH for short – is located at 322 N. Washington St. It was renamed about 1981 in memory of the beloved former teacher.

Born Dec. 14, 1942 in Los Angeles, Johanna graduated from Cal State Chico with a BA in English and an MA in Psychology.

In 1972, she was chosen from a field of 63 applicants to become the only teacher at Musalacon, while also serving as principal of the Cloverdale Adult School where she taught a course in basic English skills.

She married Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Hansen on June 29,1979 and settled in Ukiah. They had only been married 14 months when she was killed in a head on collision just north of Hopland on Aug. 28, 1980.