"Nearly everyone knows about or has hiked up to the 'U', but few people know how it got started," Grace Hudson Museum director David Burton told the Ukiah Daily Journal when Deep Valley: People, Places, Memory opened in September.
That line sums up the show. Ukiah's official 150th-anniversary party was one evening at the Civic Center on June 12, from 6 to 9 p.m. The celebration still running this winter is a gallery beside the Sun House, and it is built almost entirely from places in the valley that are still standing. You can walk into most of them this month. One of them sits on State Street behind shoring, and its future is still before the City Council.
Three Anniversaries, One Valley
The Grace Hudson Museum frames Deep Valley as a triple commemoration: the museum's 40th year, the City of Ukiah's 150th, and the nation's 250th. Burton told the Daily Journal that the show took about two and a half years to make. It began as a 250th-anniversary project, and the curatorial team then realized the city's 150th and the museum's 40th fell in the same month.
The list of subjects reads like a resident's errand map. Todd Grove Park, the Palace Hotel, Mendocino State Hospital, Pinoleville Rancheria, the Latino Americano Concilio, the Ukiah Haiku Festival, the City of 10,000 Buddhas, and the Sun House itself. The Daily Journal adds the Latitude Observatory telescope at Observatory Park and the hillside "U." The museum worked with the Pinoleville Pomo Nation on the history of Pomo people in the valley, including how cultural traditions are being reclaimed today, and consulted freelance writer Karen Rifkin on the Palace Hotel.
The show runs through Sunday, February 7, 2027. Admission is $7, $5 for students and seniors, and $15 for families. Members, Native Americans and active-duty military with ID get in free, and on first Fridays admission is free for everyone. On the calendar, that means Friday, December 4, the night before the Parade of Lights, and Friday, February 5, two days before the show closes.
Start Next Door, at the Sun House
The museum's own history is part of the exhibit. Burton's team went through the Sun House Guild archives and talked with former Guild and board members to piece together how the Sun House became city property and how the museum grew out of that. The house is right there. Docents lead tours of Grace and John Hudson's 1911 Craftsman redwood bungalow throughout the exhibition, and the front desk has the schedule. If you see the gallery and then walk through the bungalow, you get the whole 40-year story in one afternoon.
The Places on the Walls, and How to Reach Them This Winter
Most of the exhibit's subjects are still open, still in use, and close by. Here is where each one stands for a mid-November visit.
| Place in Deep Valley | Where it is | Visiting this winter |
|---|---|---|
| City of 10,000 Buddhas | 4951 Bodhi Way, Ukiah | Campus open daily, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., no entry fee |
| Jyun Kang, the campus's vegetarian restaurant | Same campus | Open Monday and Thursday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; cash or check only, no ATM on campus |
| Todd Grove Park | 600 Live Oak Dr. | Open daily, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. |
| Observatory Park | 400 block of Observatory and Luce Avenues | Docent tours by appointment |
| Palace Hotel | 272 N. State St. | Seen from the sidewalk only; under a city code case |
The City of 10,000 Buddhas has the most layers of the bunch. The exhibit covers how the campus was founded and what the property was before: Mendocino State Hospital. For nearly 80 years the hospital was one of the county's largest employers, until it closed abruptly in 1972. A lunch at Jyun Kang puts you on ground the gallery covers twice. Bring cash, and plan around the Tuesday and Wednesday closures.
Observatory Park takes a phone call ahead. The City schedules docent tours by appointment, and its listed events there require reservations. The exhibit tells the story of the Latitude Observatory telescope that stands there.
Todd Grove is the easy one. The park keeps its 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. hours into winter, with picnic facilities, a playground and restrooms. Its history is one of the stories in the exhibit.
About the "U"
The hillside letter Burton mentioned is the exhibit subject with the trickiest access. The documented approach is the City View Trail above Low Gap Park. A 2022 Ukiah Daily Journal report said the spur that climbs to the U itself crosses private property and is not an authorized route.
For a hillside walk with a view back over the valley, this winter has a newer option. The Gateway Trail Loop at Lookout Peak opened June 27, 2026. The Ukiah Valley Trail Group describes that first loop as open, and the Daily Journal gives the trailhead as 530 Doolin Canyon Road, open dawn to dusk. The City's project page treats it as the start of a larger planned trail system. On flatter ground, the Great Redwood Trail's south Ukiah segment now runs continuously for 3.3 miles from Brush Street to Plant Road.
The Palace Is the Anniversary's Open Question
The exhibit tells the Palace Hotel's history. The building's present is still being decided.
As of the City Council meeting on Wednesday, November 4, the city was still waiting for a licensed professional's answer to an October 2024 engineering report that called the structure "dangerous as it exists," according to the Mendocino Voice. The owner brought a letter from Ruff & Associates. It described the safety measures and shoring the firm had put in place and said consultants, contractors and workers could now enter for testing and preliminary design. City staff and council members said that was not the document they had asked for, and the council took no vote.
Chief Building Official Matt Keizer described the city's question narrowly. "It doesn't need to be safe," he told the council, as reported by the Mendocino Voice. The city needs the report "refuted back by the proper professionals so that we can say it's no longer dangerous as it exists." He also credited the owner's work, including a support tower where the main roof had collapsed and a shoring wall on one side of the building. The owner said he would meet with the architect on November 6 and come back in about two weeks with a new letter. The open code case dates to a November 2023 notice of violation.
So among all the places in Deep Valley, the Palace is the one you see only from the sidewalk on North State Street. Its case is the one most likely to change while the exhibit is still up.
The Dates Between Now and Closing Day
The exhibit gives the winter its spine, and the town's holiday calendar fits around it:
- Friday, December 4: First Friday, with free admission to the Grace Hudson Museum.
- Saturday, December 5, 6 p.m.: The City's 2026 Parade of Lights.
- Sunday, December 13, 5:30 to 7 p.m.: "Home for Christmas," a free community carol singalong at First Presbyterian Church, 514 W. Church St., with harpist Anna Maria Mendietta and a children's choir.
- Saturday, January 16, 2 to 3:15 p.m.: "The Mendocino State Hospital: A Retrospective," a talk by local historian Q.Z. Lau on the hospital's founding, daily operations and closure.
- Friday, February 5: The last first Friday of the exhibit's run.
- Sunday, February 7: Deep Valley closes.
The January talk pairs best with a Jyun Kang lunch the same weekend. Lunch puts you on the grounds, and the talk explains what stood there for most of the last century.
Down South State Street, a Building Waiting for Its Next Use
Another reuse story on State Street is too new for any exhibit. The former Rite Aid at 680 South State Street has an approved Minor Use Permit for "Ukiah Bowl." The plan calls for 12 bowling lanes, a commercial kitchen, a bar, an arcade, party rooms and a children's play area, capped at 248 occupants under the airport compatibility rules. In June, the Mendocino Voice reported that the applicant, Ukiah resident Steve DeLucia, hoped to open sometime in 2027 and cautioned that nothing was guaranteed.
If you own land or a home in the Ukiah Valley and want to know how its history affects what it could be worth to the right buyer, Kevin M. Properties is glad to walk the ground with you. Get in Touch.
