The Sonoma County Economic Development Board hosted the 6^th annual State of the County breakfast Wednesday morning, with Supervisor Paul Kelley delivering the centerpiece address. KRCB was there to record and bring you his talk.

Supervisor Paul Kelley

An early businessman named John Bagley may have been the most prominent citizen of the town that became Guerneville, but as Schubert relates,  Bagley chose to name it for one of his friends and business partners, rather than himself.

Before the train came out the Russian River from the Santa Rosa plain, some Guerneville area entrepreneurs tried using the river itself as a transportation corridor, but as John Schubert relates, that proved to be a short-lived experiment.

John Schubert,  is a Russian River historian and board member for the Sonoma County Historical Society as well as the Russian River Historical Society. His  Guerneville Early Days: A History of the Lower Russian River, covers the history of Guerneville up to 1910.

Schubert's self-published book received the 1999 Campbell Augustus Menefee Scholastic Award.

As logging cleared more and more land along the lower Russian River, some astute local businessmen came up with a plan to maximize their resources, by selling vacation homes in the area.

A common feature of these vacation homes was a wraparound porch, which John Schubert explains was far more practical when they were built than now.

Where there's fire there's smoke, and on Spare The Air days that's not a good thing.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has adopted new rules that prohibit district residents from using wood burning stoves or fireplaces on specified Spare the Air Days during the winter months.

You can subscribe to an automated email notification system for "no burn: days here. There is also an automated telephone notification system. The Spare the Air Winter alerts are also available by calling 1-877-4-NOBURN (1-877-466-2876).

Most of Sonoma County is part of the Bay Area Air Quality District, and subject to the new rules.The coastal and northern parts of the county which lie outside the  District are not covered by its regulations, and compliance in these areas is voluntary..To see a list of cities and counties covered by the Spare The Air no-burn rules, click here .

 The oldest and perhaps only wireless telegraph station on the west coast is still beaming Morse code out to the world from its original outpost overlooking Tomales Bay.

By continuing to use the restored antique electronics at the Marconi station, Richard Dillman (the operator in the photo above) says they are practicing a form of living history.

The Maritime Radio Historical Society applied for and received a new commercial telegraph operators license for the Marshall station, which they now use to keep the signal actively operating on the weekends.

The Marconi Conference Center will host an open house displaying historical pieces of radio once used for both military and merchant ships coming into the bay. Located in Tomales Bay, the center will display the relics and provide stories of what it was like on the coast during the radio era.

The Radio Maritime Radio Historical Society is the driving force for the event, to visit their website click here .