Pacific Pearl / KNYO Radio / Coast Cleaners

A 1906 Franklin Street storefront where clean clothes, candy, found treasures, music, radio, and community life have all passed through the same old commercial footprint.

Overview

Some downtown Fort Bragg buildings have a way of changing uses without ever losing their place in the rhythm of town.

The storefronts at 325–327 North Franklin Street are a good example. Today this old commercial building is associated with Pacific Pearl and KNYO Radio, two very different but distinctly local operations. One is built around reuse, artwork, collected objects, and found treasures. The other is built around music, conversation, volunteer broadcasting, and community connection.

Long before either of those arrived, the building was remembered for Coast Cleaners and Alton's Candy. Together, those businesses created the kind of everyday downtown memories that rarely appear in official histories but remain vivid for the people who grew up around them.

The Building

The building dates to 1906 and belongs to the older Franklin Street commercial pattern.

It is not grand or elaborate. It has the plain, practical appearance of a working downtown storefront built to remain useful. Buildings like this helped keep Fort Bragg moving block by block, housing shops, service businesses, offices, and family-run operations that changed as the town changed.

Its long history also shows how adaptable these older commercial buildings could be. Cleaning and pressing equipment, a candy counter, secondhand treasures, artwork, microphones, and radio equipment have all found a place within the same footprint.

History

One of the strongest remembered chapters at this address is Coast Cleaners.

For many years, Coast Cleaners was owned and operated by Roy and Virginia Bishop. It was more than a place where people dropped off clothes and returned later to pick them up. It was a working family business offering dry cleaning and delivery service, and for a time it also expanded into carpet cleaning.

The business belonged to an era when more Fort Bragg workers regularly wore suits, dresses, pressed shirts, and uniforms. Local law-enforcement officers brought in their uniforms. Other customers arrived with clothing that needed cleaning, pressing, repairs, buttons, zippers, pockets, or patches.

Wool shirts sometimes received suede patches at the elbows. The sewing machine was kept busy, the cleaning equipment ran, and hours were spent working at the press.

The back of the cleaners was also remembered as a gathering place. People stopped by while work was still being done and stood near the press talking about fishing, hunting, jobs, families, and whatever else was happening around Fort Bragg.

The Bishop children grew up with Franklin Street as part of their everyday world. They ran errands, visited neighboring businesses, and became familiar faces throughout the block.

Vernon and Linda later took over Coast Cleaners and continued the family business while raising their own family there. That kept the cleaners going for another generation before they eventually retired.

Another remembered business at this address was Alton's Candy. The candy shop once occupied the portion of the building now associated with KNYO Radio. It adds a very different kind of memory to the property.

Before microphones, music programs, interviews, and radio broadcasts filled the space, there was candy. It was the kind of small downtown business that children noticed and remembered, especially when several nearby storefronts formed part of their regular neighborhood territory.

A cleaners, a candy shop, a resale and art store, and a radio station may seem to have little in common. Together, however, they show how an old commercial building survives. It keeps adapting to whatever the community needs next.

The Building Today

Today, KNYO-LP 107.7 FM gives 325 North Franklin Street a different kind of public life.

KNYO describes itself as an all-volunteer radio station. It began broadcasting in 2006 and has become part of the Mendocino Coast's independent community-radio voice.

From its Franklin Street studio, music, interviews, conversations, public-affairs programming, local information, and volunteer-produced shows travel over the air instead of across a store counter.

The equipment and purpose may be different from the businesses that came before, but the underlying role remains familiar. It is still a small downtown operation providing a local service and creating a place where community voices can be heard.

Pacific Pearl adds another present-day chapter to the old Franklin Street building. The storefront has the feeling of reuse, artwork, curiosity, collected objects, and things being given a second life. That seems especially appropriate in a building that has been finding new purposes for well over a century.

Where cleaning machines, clothing racks, sewing equipment, and business counters once filled the space, there are now found treasures and creative displays. The merchandise may change, but the building continues to serve as a place where people stop, look around, talk, and discover something unexpected.

Why It Matters

This address belongs in Fort Bragg's history because it represents more than one business.

It holds a whole succession of local lives and uses: Coast Cleaners, Alton's Candy, Pacific Pearl, KNYO Radio, working parents, downtown children, uniforms, wool shirts, clothing repairs, candy, music, artwork, old objects, and conversations beside the press or near the back door.

Some buildings are remembered because they are impressive. Others are remembered because generations of people worked inside them, grew up around them, stopped in regularly, and made them part of daily life.

The storefronts at 325–327 North Franklin Street are that kind of place.

Sources: Original post text and photograph provided by Gee Bee; original community discussion and family recollections with contributor Evelyn Bishop Anderson; KNYO Radio official website; Arts Council of Mendocino County listing for KNYO Radio Station; InFortBragg.com KNYO entry; City of Fort Bragg minor-use-permit reference concerning the KNYO antenna mast; building date and historical information supplied in the original research post.