Drought uncovers long-ago family homestead site hidden beneath Lake Mendocino

The Press Democrat

Andy Mattern knew exactly what he was looking for as he scanned the receding edges of Lake Mendocino.

Finally, he spotted the tops of a handful of wooden stakes protruding from the mud and bird droppings along the shoreline.

Cut from virgin redwood almost a century earlier, those stakes had been driven into the ground by his grandfather, Lorenzo Fracchia, to support his grapevines.

That was early in the 20th century, when there was no lake.

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