Originally named Sanel after the native Sanelanos people, the town was founded in 1859 when a store, saloon, and blacksmith shop opened. It became Hopland in 1880 because hops dominated the local economy. Prohibition gradually replaced hops with hay, pears, and grapes. This brick building, erected in the 1880s, housed a general store, post office, butcher shop, and in the early 1900s, the Hop Vine Saloon. In 1982 the Mendocino Brewing Company was founded, and in 1983 it opened its Hopland brewery here, establishing the first brewpub in California since Prohibition and the second in the United States.