Mendocino (Spanish for “of Mendoza”) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Mendocino County, California, United States. Mendocino is located 10 miles (16 km) south of Fort Bragg at an elevation of 154 feet (47 m). The population of the CDP was 932 at the 2020 census. The town’s publicize comes from Cape Mendocino 85 miles (137 km) to the north, named by beforehand Spanish navigators in honor of Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain.

Despite its little size, the town’s scenic location upon a headland between the Pacific Ocean has made it certainly popular as an artists’ colony and considering vacationers.

Prior to 1850, a Pomo agreement named Buldam was located near Mendocino on the north bank of the immense River. In 1850, the ship Frolic was wrecked a few miles north of Mendocino, at Point Cabrillo, and the laboratory analysis of the wreck by agents of Henry Meiggs sparked the further of the timber industry in the area. Mendocino itself was founded in 1852 as a logging community for what became the Mendocino Lumber Company, and was originally named “Meiggsville” after Meiggs. The town was afterward known as “Big River” Meiggstown, and “Mendocino City”, before the current proclaim was fixed on. The first herald office opened in 1858. Many of the town’s in front settlers were New Englanders, as was authenticated of many older Northern California logging towns. Portuguese fishermen from the Azores also settled in the area, as did immigrants from Canton Province in China, who built the Taoist Temple of Kwan Tai in town.

Mendocino’s economy declined after 1940, and it became a somewhat solitary village in imitation of a shrinking population. The revitalization of the town began in the late 1950s with the founding of the Mendocino Art Center by artiste Bill Zacha.