Matson Building Materials

Overview

Matson Building Materials

Some Fort Bragg businesses are not remembered because they had a fancy storefront. They are remembered because half the town eventually needed something from them.

Matson Building Materials is one of those practical north-end Fort Bragg places that tells its story through lumber racks, wide parking areas, contractor trucks, hardware aisles, roofing supplies, paint, tools, windows, flooring, masonry materials, fasteners, and all the other unglamorous things that keep houses, businesses, decks, fences, roofs, and garages standing.

It is not a place built around display windows and sidewalk browsing. It is a place built around getting the job done.

Location

Matson Building Materials sits at 22601 N. Highway 1, north of Fort Bragg, on a property well suited to a working building-supply business.

The location gives trucks, trailers, contractors, delivery vehicles, homeowners, and people coming in from outlying areas plenty of room to reach the business without having to navigate a tight downtown storefront.

The property itself fits its purpose. Lumber, roofing materials, masonry supplies, hardware, and other bulky building products need room to come in, be stored, loaded, and head back out into the community.

From here, those materials become houses, remodels, additions, decks, fences, roofs, shops, repairs, and weekend projects all over the Mendocino Coast.

History

The history of Matson Building Materials needs a little care because there are really two related stories here: the Matson family's long involvement in construction on the Mendocino Coast and the later history of the building-supply store at this particular Highway 1 location.

Matson Building Materials itself has advertised that it has been supporting contractors and the community since 1949. The Matson family's construction history is certainly a long one, with the family's own construction businesses describing four generations and more than 80 years of building on the Mendocino Coast.

A community memory added an important detail to the story, recalling that Matson Building Materials itself came along much later, probably during the 1990s, and that the current building was constructed around the same time. According to that recollection, the Matson family had already been involved in construction for many years and opened the building-supply store partly to support that work.

I have not found enough independent documentation yet to pin down the exact year the current store opened or when this particular building was constructed, so I would rather keep those chapters separate than turn a family-history date into a firm opening date for the store.

What is clear is that the Matson name has deep roots in local construction, and the building-supply business grew naturally out of that working tradition.

Over time, Matson Building Materials became a broad local source for lumber, roofing, windows, flooring, masonry products, paint, power tools, hardware, fasteners, and other supplies needed by both professional contractors and people trying to finish one stubborn project at home.

The Building Today

Today, Matson Building Materials continues operating at 22601 N. Highway 1 as a full building-supply and hardware business.

The store serves professional builders, repair crews, remodelers, homeowners, and weekend project people. Its own business information describes a wide range of products, including lumber, roofing materials, windows, flooring, masonry supplies, paint, power tools, hardware, and fasteners.

The business has also been identified as a local Do it Best store and serves as a UPS Authorized Shipping Provider, which is a good example of how small-town coastal businesses often become more than one thing because the community needs them to be.

The property still looks exactly like what it is meant to be: a working supply yard where materials come in, get stacked, stored, sold, loaded, and carried back out into the community.

Why It Matters

Matson Building Materials belongs in this project because places like this sit quietly behind much of the built history of Fort Bragg and the Mendocino Coast.

A building-supply yard may not get its name on the finished house, business, porch, roof, deck, fence, garage, or remodeled kitchen, but somewhere along the way, somebody had to supply the lumber, nails, roofing, tools, concrete products, paint, windows, or that one missing part nobody remembered to buy.

That is the working side of local history.

The Matson story also shows how a longtime family connection to construction can grow into something larger. The exact opening date of the present store still deserves more research, but the broader connection between the Matson family, local building, and this north-highway supply yard is clear.

A town's history is not only made in hotels, restaurants, theaters, mills, and old downtown storefronts. Sometimes it is made at the lumber counter, in the roofing aisle, or out in the yard where somebody is loading materials for the next job.

Sources: Original post text/photo provided by Gee Bee; Matson Building Materials website; Do it Best store listing; UPS Authorized Shipping Provider listing.