This was bugging me for the longest time. I found the solution, at least for my laptop running tricia 19.1. I have yet to test it on newer versions of mate.
- Open dconf-editor
- search of location bar
- See image below
a. Click off for use default value
b. Click on for use custom value
c. save


This is what it looks like on a later version of Mint Mate. It is found under /org/mate/caja/window-state/

