Is there anyway to find old chats? Search feature?

2 days ago someone from GTHA messages me randomly 3x from 2 cites over in the chat box on the bottom right. I didn't know there was a chat box and it caught me off guard.
I was in the middle of making a post on the forum, minimized the chat box, finished the post and went to reply to messages but instead of minimizing the chat box I somehow closed it. Cannot figure out who sent the messages now. It was a combo of letters and numbers in the name.
Is there any history section here where I can see who it was that messaged me locally? Kind of a piss off when your looking for locals and a local random message happens and you can't figure out who it was.

Also is there anyway to search members by city to find locals only? Fetlife does not have member search but this isn't Fetlife.

Lastly, is there any way to disable the blue chat box at the bottom right to prevent similar occurrences in the future? Messages should be sent to the inbox.