For more than a dozen years, Louis Hough has written Kelley House Calendar columns about maritime themes. This man has never met a steam engine he didn’t like, be it on a schooner or a railroad locomotive. He is the author of “Fleet to be Forgotten” about the wooden freighter Liberty Ships of World War I, published by the San Francisco Maritime Museum. The author admits he has been working on his book for 30 years and is happy to have it in print. It will be on sale at the Kelley House Museum.
After a career that lead to winning numerous awards in editing non-theatrical motion pictures in the San Francisco Bay Area, Hough and his wife retired to the coast. They had vacationed here for years and loved the area.
Hough’s grandfather and dad were both marine architects and his grandfather designed the steam schooners that conducted trade and transportation along the Redwood Coast, and Granddad also designed the Liberty Ships that carried supplies during World War I.
With long, rugged and impractical land transportation routes in days gone by, it was shipping that was the lifeline for supplies on the coast. If it wasn’t a critter with four legs or something that grew out of the ground it arrived on the coast on a ship.
The Kelley House has a wonderful selection of materials on shipping that Hough used during his research. Nannie Escola, who collected local history, loved ships. More than a dozen three-ring notebooks are crammed full of her clippings and notes including: Mendocino Ships A-Z, Shipwrecks of the Mendocino Coast, Sailing Vessels, Tugs, Lighters and Scows, Coastal Plying Vessels, Ship Loading, Sea Captains, and Ship Builders.
If readers have any questions on maritime history come to the Kelley House and investigate the resources there. We hope you’ll join us on May 23rd at 3 p.m. to hear Louis Hough delve into the subject. This talk is one of many events taking place during May in honor of National Preservation Month.
