Pretty far west. Not far enough. Photo: Nate Dawgg.

This morning the San Francisco-based publication 7x7 — once a proud glossy city magazine, now apparently devolved into listicle-slinging — blogged a blog post entitled …

“6 Northern California Towns You Haven’t Heard of but Are Charming AF”

… and the number one most charming AF Northern California town that you’ve never heard of, assuming you’ve never read any of the previous 723 listicles on the same subject, is, of course: Ferndale!

The home of “storybook vibes and an old saloon,” Ferndale, we are told, is “dripping in [?] storybook homes and bay window–fronted shops.” Make sure you visit the “creepy yet beautiful” cemetery. Maybe you want to stay the night? Well, check out the Gingerbread Mansion!

But it’s 7x7’s kicker, here, that prompts this particular reply track to our colleagues on the wrong side of the Golden Gate.

“Either way, don’t forget …” writes associate editor Shoshi Parks from what I imagine to be a bunker 50 feet beneath the Transamerica Pyramid, where she is chained to her cubicle tapping out content at 80 words a minute while leaky pipes hiss steam around her. “Either way, don’t forget to stop in for a cocktail and a game of shuffleboard at The Palace Saloon, the westernmost bar in the continental U.S.”

Now, look. We know this is Humboldt County legend of longstanding, and there’s even a plaque outside the bar trumpeting this obvious falsehood to everyone who strolls past — or even, God forbid, into — The Palace.

But no one who is not drunk actually believes this, right? Look. I made you a map.

Go ahead and zoom in, there. You may confirm the black line of longitude I’ve added to this map — 124.264505371 degrees West — passes right through The Palace.

Now scroll north.

Uh huh.

What do you see?

You see that The Palace is only the westernmost bar in the continental United States if the entire southern Oregon Coast and the town of Forks, Washington suddenly reinstated Prohibition without telling anyone.

Trust me, they have not. Bandon, Brookings, Port Orford — not only do they possess bars, they possess some of the hard-drinkingest bar patrons you’ll find anywhere. Show them some respect.