Officials at California’s Mendocino Headlands State Park have given top priority to an historic reclamation project atop high tableland overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  According to Jenny Hecheroth, manager of Mendocino’s Ford House Interpretive Center, the focus is a 19th century apron chute employed by redwood loggers and now reduced to iron remnants.  At an elevation of over 50 feet above the surf, where a “blowhole” blasted out by wave action pierces the grassland above Mendocino’s Portuguese Beach, immigrant loggers slid redwood logs through the opening to ships waiting below.

The 19th century immigrant population of Mendocino was so dominant that Mediterranean and Asian plants comprise a large proportion of the grassland flora overlooking Portuguese Beach, according to Teresa Sholars, biologist with nearby College of the Redwoods.  A favorite photographic perspective of the Mendocino townsite still features in the foreground yellow-flowering kale introduced by early Chinese laborers.