Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. And a
Speaker 1: little bit of business before we get into today's episode. Uh.
Speaker 1: We normally, in the course of any given year would
Speaker 1: probably tour a little bit hell little maybe some live shows,
Speaker 1: maybe someone off live shows that were asked to go
Speaker 1: to places and do them, or we would have our
Speaker 1: own tour. Uh. And one of the best parts about
Speaker 1: those for us is getting to do Q and A
Speaker 1: with the audience, and we really miss it, so uh,
Speaker 1: we thought it might be a good thing to do
Speaker 1: our own little Q and A that is a non
Speaker 1: touring version in which you are listeners can send us
Speaker 1: questions uh and then we will pull as many as
Speaker 1: we can and make an episode out of us answering
Speaker 1: those questions. So, if you would like to submit a
Speaker 1: question for a Q and A episode, you need to
Speaker 1: do that by June twelve. Uh. And you can do
Speaker 1: that by sending it to History Podcast at I heart
Speaker 1: radio dot com and that way we will get it
Speaker 1: and hopefully read it and then answer it in the
Speaker 1: It could be your burning questions about previous episodes, how
Speaker 1: we record something totally unrelated that you've either thought about
Speaker 1: or wondered about, or you know, you can ask us
Speaker 1: questions about ourselves. Depending on how personal they get, we
Speaker 1: may or may not include them, but please do send
Speaker 1: those to us. Again. That is History Podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: radio dot com and we need them by June twelve,
Speaker 1: so we can't wait to hear from you. Now on
Speaker 1: to today's episode. Uh. John Steinbeck published a novel it
Speaker 1: became very popular called Cannary Row, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a slice of life look at a small community in Monterey, California,
Speaker 1: And Stiby had actually been born in nearby Selina's and
Speaker 1: then lived in Monterey for more than a decade from
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine with his first wife, And that novel
Speaker 1: is really a very loving look at the place and
Speaker 1: the people who lived there. And he wrote it though
Speaker 1: after he had moved away. But Canary Row is of
Speaker 1: course a real place, although it was not called that
Speaker 1: until after the novel was written. It was just Ocean
Speaker 1: View Avenue. Before that it was just wagon tracks, and
Speaker 1: before that it was occupied by indigenous peoples and did
Speaker 1: not have roads. Uh, they'll probably paths today. Canary Row
Speaker 1: is a really busy tourism center. If you have ever
Speaker 1: been there, you know what I'm talking about. But I
Speaker 1: thought it would be interesting to look at some of
Speaker 1: its history, from before it was home to any white settlers,
Speaker 1: through the heyday of its time as a fishing and
Speaker 1: canning center, and then how it evolved to be the
Speaker 1: place it is today. So true story on the genesis
Speaker 1: or this episode. I have been really, really quite comfortable
Speaker 1: and content being home all the time through this pandemic isolation.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm one of the luck elands that
Speaker 1: I It has not troubled me. I mean, the pandemic
Speaker 1: itself is stressful, but in terms of just having to
Speaker 1: stay in my home for a couple of months, that
Speaker 1: has not been a problem at all. But I'm missing
Speaker 1: travel a little bit. It started to express itself to
Speaker 1: me by just having dreams about trips I have been on.
Speaker 1: They're not fantastical, They're literally like watching movies of trips
Speaker 1: out down UH. And one of them UH is a
Speaker 1: trip that I have been waxing a little rhapsodic about,
Speaker 1: which was a day last year that I just spent
Speaker 1: driving out too and hanging out in Monterey with one
Speaker 1: of my dearest friends. Uh So, I thought this would
Speaker 1: be a nice way to revisit that. And I hope
Speaker 1: that we can all go wherever it hurts desire soon
Speaker 1: and all of us with travel bugs or anyone who
Speaker 1: is getting a little tired of being in the house
Speaker 1: will soon be past that. So I very similarly have
Speaker 1: been simultaneously feeling very lucky and missing getting out and
Speaker 1: doing some stuff. So a lot of sources that look
Speaker 1: at the history of Canary Row start with the settlement
Speaker 1: of a Chinese fishing village in the eighteen fifties. Obviously
Speaker 1: that's an important part of the story, but it also
Speaker 1: leaves out a really significant precursor to that, which is
Speaker 1: the Alonei people. The Alonei had lived along what is
Speaker 1: now the California coast from Big Sur north to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: For context, Monterey is about thirty miles north of Big Sur,
Speaker 1: and the alone were not all grouped together under one
Speaker 1: umbrella for a long time. In the mid seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: when they become part of the record for European settlers,
Speaker 1: there were approximately ten thousand Alonei people living on the coast,
Speaker 1: spread across forty to fifty different tribal communities. The languages
Speaker 1: among these communities and tribes, which you will sometimes see
Speaker 1: called tribe let's varied, and again they did not consider
Speaker 1: themselves one people, although it's certainly possible they may have
Speaker 1: stemmed from the same group at one point thousands of
Speaker 1: years back, and they mixed socially, including intermarrying among the
Speaker 1: various groups. The subgroup that is most closely linked to
Speaker 1: the immediate Monterey area was the rooms or rooms in
Speaker 1: which will also see it spelled as uh. They were
Speaker 1: most local to the area we're talking about today. The
Speaker 1: Oloni lived through hunting and gathering with their own art
Speaker 1: and culture in the Bay area for more than ten
Speaker 1: thousand years up until the arrival of Europeans that we
Speaker 1: mentioned just a moment ago. As early as sixteen o two,
Speaker 1: the people native to the region probably had some kind
Speaker 1: of contact with Spanish explorers. That was the year that
Speaker 1: Sebastian de Visa kind of visited the Bay area looking
Speaker 1: for a place to harbor ships. Spanish explorers Don Gaspar
Speaker 1: de Portola and father Juan Crespy were some of the
Speaker 1: first to visit the area with the intent of actually
Speaker 1: staying there. But that didn't happen until much later in
Speaker 1: the late seventeen sixties. Accounts written by the Spanish in
Speaker 1: those early years mentioned the numerous established villages of the
Speaker 1: Alone who, although they referred to them as costano initially
Speaker 1: literally just meaning coastal people um, that evolved into coast
Speaker 1: to ohen. Yeah, you will still see sometimes in older
Speaker 1: scholarly articles the Alonei referred to as coast and Owen's
Speaker 1: and the Spanish did indeed set up mission settlements as planned.
Speaker 1: There were seven built between the years of seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: and sevente Dolores, San Carlos, Solidad, San Juan Bautista, Santa Cruz,
Speaker 1: Santa Clara, and San Jose. And as the missions moved in,
Speaker 1: the Alonei worked with the settlers. Often they would move
Speaker 1: their huts closer to the nearest mission, and they started
Speaker 1: integrating into those mission communities as they were evangelized to
Speaker 1: leave their tribal ways behind and convert to Christianity. This
Speaker 1: proved disastrous. By eighteen fifty, the Alone population was deeply depleted,
Speaker 1: diseases contracted from the European settlers, high infant mortality rates
Speaker 1: and genocide. Under the guise of protecting white settlers had
Speaker 1: claimed the lives of most of the indigenous peoples of
Speaker 1: the coast. There are contemporary organizations that have established groups
Speaker 1: of Alonei descendants and traced back through those mission records.
Speaker 1: They've regained some of their tribal culture, including reviving some
Speaker 1: of those languages that had been spoken by the tribelets
Speaker 1: that are now grouped under the colony umbrella. Additionally, there
Speaker 1: are efforts being made to get federal recognition from the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Indian Affairs and an ongoing effort in California
Speaker 1: to have an Alonei cultural center established on land that
Speaker 1: was taken from them previously. So when Chinese immigrants settled
Speaker 1: in the area just as California was beginning its statehood,
Speaker 1: there was not much left of the Alonei to document.
Speaker 1: And while the Chinese settlers in the Bay Area and
Speaker 1: specifically Monterey were essential in establishing what would become the
Speaker 1: area's identity, their origins there are less than spectacularly documented.
Speaker 1: For one, there's a lack of clarity about where specifically
Speaker 1: they first started living and fishing. The first camp might
Speaker 1: have been in a place that was a few miles
Speaker 1: south of the now famous waterfront strip of Canary Row
Speaker 1: at Point Lobos and on Carmel Bay. Coming from a
Speaker 1: fishing culture, these settlers from Asia are believed to have
Speaker 1: quickly realized just how ample their potential take was there
Speaker 1: on the Pacific coast of North America, and to have
Speaker 1: quickly set up additional camps at Pescadero and Point Alones.
Speaker 1: If you look up Point Alone is on a modern map,
Speaker 1: you'll see it's right there in the mixt of the
Speaker 1: tourist district that has grown around Canary Row. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: really is kind of a central point of all of this.
Speaker 1: And by the mid eighteen fifties, so just a few
Speaker 1: years after they started fishing, their hundreds of Chinese fishermen
Speaker 1: were turning the area into a commercial fishing enterprise. Initially
Speaker 1: they would dive and gather abalone, and then they moved
Speaker 1: on to other catches and different fishing when competition from
Speaker 1: other fishermen, who realized that these Chinese fishermen were really
Speaker 1: onto something potentially um fiscally beneficial, kind of made it
Speaker 1: a little more difficult for the Chinese to continue to
Speaker 1: do so, so they started fishing for yellowtail, flounder, cod
Speaker 1: and sardines. Among others. In the next fifty years, fishing
Speaker 1: would become a massive industry as these settlements grew into
Speaker 1: villages and ultimately into larger and more established communities that
Speaker 1: were part of the growing Monterey area. In the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, daily catches ranging from an estimated two hundred
Speaker 1: to eight hundred pounds were coming into Monterey through the
Speaker 1: Chinese fisheries, and some of the fish was dried and
Speaker 1: then sent back to China. I read one thing that
Speaker 1: this was kind of a trick about salt import that
Speaker 1: they would dry the fish, packet and salt and send
Speaker 1: it back and they could get around some of the
Speaker 1: taxation of salt that was moving uh. And then the
Speaker 1: junks that would arrive in Monterey Bay would offload goods
Speaker 1: for importers there and those would eventually move to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and then they would reload with all of this dried
Speaker 1: fish to take at home, and some of the fish
Speaker 1: was also sold to markets in San Francisco. The main
Speaker 1: fishing village that developed eventually became known as China Point.
Speaker 1: That's kind of centered around the Point Alones area, and
Speaker 1: it was running a busy and successful business. But of
Speaker 1: course that level of success from an immigrant community led
Speaker 1: to conflict with other groups because of racism. We've talked
Speaker 1: so many times about laws that were explicitly anti Chinese
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, including the Chinese Exclusion Act, which
Speaker 1: forbid immigration from China. But even for people who were
Speaker 1: living entirely with the law and who had contributed to
Speaker 1: the economic success of the area, there was still plenty
Speaker 1: of racism to deal with. Things were relatively peaceful for
Speaker 1: most of the eighteen hundreds, but in the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the Chinese population in Monterey, many of whom had had
Speaker 1: been born in California at that point and where US citizens,
Speaker 1: faced growing adversity when it came to their neighbors. And
Speaker 1: we're going to get into the complaints that started about
Speaker 1: the Chinese Fish village after we first take a break
Speaker 1: and hear from our sponsors in nineteen o four, complaints
Speaker 1: about the smell of Point Alnis and it's drying fish
Speaker 1: escalated rapidly. That land that the Chinese fishing village was
Speaker 1: on was leased to the village by the Pacific Improvement Company.
Speaker 1: We're going to come back to this entity in a bit,
Speaker 1: and the white community started pressuring the leaseholder to evict
Speaker 1: the Chinese fisherman over this issue of the smell. A
Speaker 1: notice was issued by the landlord that all leases would
Speaker 1: be canceled, and leaders from the fishing village then approached
Speaker 1: the Pacific Improvement Company and they wanted to negotiate and
Speaker 1: find a mutually beneficial solution, and this started to take
Speaker 1: shape as a search for another location within the p
Speaker 1: i c s property holdings that would meet the needs
Speaker 1: of the fishermen. But as this potential move was being
Speaker 1: worked out, another event that we've talked about before on
Speaker 1: the show took place, and that was the San Francisco
Speaker 1: earthquake and fires of April six. We mentioned in that
Speaker 1: episode that some of San Francisco's Chinatown residents moved to
Speaker 1: other Chinese communities as refugees, and this was the case
Speaker 1: on Monterey. About a hundred and fifty people moved into
Speaker 1: the village at Point Alans and for about a month,
Speaker 1: the landlord backed off of this whole eviction plan. Discussion
Speaker 1: resumed in May, this time of a possible move to
Speaker 1: attractive land at Point Pinos. Yeah. To be clear, I
Speaker 1: don't think they were like, oh, we're in dire times.
Speaker 1: Will be nice. They were busy with their own property
Speaker 1: damage when they kind of stopped pestering them about eviction.
Speaker 1: But then as these negotiations that restarted, uh, we're kind
Speaker 1: of moving along. But they did not get very far
Speaker 1: because a fire started in a barn that was part
Speaker 1: of the Chinese fishing village, and that fire ultimately consumed
Speaker 1: most of the buildings surrounding it and basically the majority
Speaker 1: of the village. Whether or not this was a case
Speaker 1: of parson remains unknown. Ah, you can still find discussion
Speaker 1: of it. Uh, but everybody who pretty agrees will never
Speaker 1: know the truth. White spectators watched this blaze as the
Speaker 1: village's residents ran in and out, trying to save everything
Speaker 1: they could, but a lot of times things that were
Speaker 1: saved were then looted as soon as the owner ran
Speaker 1: back to try to rescue more of their belongings. There
Speaker 1: are accounts that some of the spectators openly cheered as
Speaker 1: they watched. Only a few buildings were left standing afterward.
Speaker 1: So if you heard that episode on the nineteen o
Speaker 1: six fires in San Francisco, you may recall that many
Speaker 1: of the residents of San Francisco's Chinatown refused to leave
Speaker 1: even though the city was hoping that would be an
Speaker 1: excuse to push them out, and ultimately they rebuilt. A
Speaker 1: similar thing took place in Monterey after the fire. There,
Speaker 1: while only a few buildings were left, those same leaders
Speaker 1: who had begun negotiating with their landlord let a movement
Speaker 1: of people who refused to be pushed out of a
Speaker 1: community that they had built. They staged a sit in
Speaker 1: which led to a negotiation of a new lease, this
Speaker 1: time at mccabee Beach, just south of Point Alonus. While
Speaker 1: some of the village community stayed and tried to make
Speaker 1: a go of it in their new location, most dispersed
Speaker 1: to other areas, and ultimately, once squid drying was banned
Speaker 1: inside city limits, the Macabi site was abandoned as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for clarity, if you know the area, um, this is
Speaker 1: not These two places are not far from each other,
Speaker 1: like you can walk it in five to ten minutes.
Speaker 1: It's all pretty close together, which is just kind of
Speaker 1: geographically interesting to me. For three years in the early
Speaker 1: two thousands, there was a large scale archaeological dig and
Speaker 1: analysis that was conducted at Point Alone's and it turned
Speaker 1: up some of the only material remains of the once
Speaker 1: robust Chinese American fishing community there. In eighteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: a group called the Patrons of Husbandry, which was a
Speaker 1: farmer's coalition more commonly called the Rangers, built the region's
Speaker 1: first steam powered railroad that ran from Salinas Valley to Monterrey.
Speaker 1: The grangers entire point of existence was to fight monopolistic
Speaker 1: grain transport, so in establishing a line that could take
Speaker 1: the grain from Salina's two ships and Moterey, they were
Speaker 1: trying to break this monopoly that had been held by
Speaker 1: the Southern Pacific Railroad. Southern Pacific was costing the local
Speaker 1: industry as much as two thousand dollars a year in
Speaker 1: freight costs, and while this did force competition, which resulted
Speaker 1: in Southern Pacific extending its own lines a little bit
Speaker 1: further and lowering freight charges, it was ultimately not a
Speaker 1: successful venture. Storms caused bridge collapses on the line several
Speaker 1: different times in the first few years, and an engine
Speaker 1: house burned down in eighteen seventy seven, and then a
Speaker 1: bitter challenge over executive leadership that ended up becoming a
Speaker 1: State Supreme Court case further destabilized the company. In fall
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, Southern Pacific bought the Monterey and Selina's
Speaker 1: Valley Railroad, so it ended up in the end only
Speaker 1: adding to Southern Pacific's monopoly in the area. But the
Speaker 1: bigger impact, at least for Monterey, was that this suddenly
Speaker 1: made the ocean side town completely accessible to additional large
Speaker 1: scale business and also to tourism, and that meant an
Speaker 1: entirely new revenue stream for the community. Charles Crocker, and
Speaker 1: executive with the railroad, immediately saw the financial potential of
Speaker 1: making Monterey a tourist destination, so, using Southern Pacific's power, influence,
Speaker 1: and property, he had a hotel built with incredible speed
Speaker 1: to accommodate what he believed would be a huge money maker.
Speaker 1: That was the Hotel del Monte. Architect Arthur Brown, Sr.
Speaker 1: Who worked for the railroad, designed the sprawling Victorian resort,
Speaker 1: and it was a big, showy place. You can see
Speaker 1: pictures of it. It's quite beautiful and while it was
Speaker 1: sometimes called Crocker's folly during construction by disbelievers who thought
Speaker 1: that no one would pay to visit a fishing town,
Speaker 1: the hotel was in fact a massive success. Hotel del
Speaker 1: Monte opened on June third, eighteen eighty, and within a
Speaker 1: month it had turned a profit of eleven thousand, three
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. In the first month and a half it
Speaker 1: was open, more than three thousand booking requests had had
Speaker 1: to be turned away because the luxury hotel just couldn't
Speaker 1: accommodate all the people who wanted to visit. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: had I think a little over a hundred rooms and
Speaker 1: it was just like never ending calls. Can we book
Speaker 1: as day? No? In fact no. Uh. The resort was
Speaker 1: on a seven thousand acre parcel of land, and it
Speaker 1: had its own botanical garden, as well as numerous other amenities.
Speaker 1: In September eighteen eighty, President Rutherford Behayes stayed at the
Speaker 1: Hotel Del Monte, and he praised his visit as quote
Speaker 1: one of the most agreeable episodes of our lives. Because
Speaker 1: of the reputation the hotel enjoyed immediately upon opening, it
Speaker 1: was a huge draw for the growing leisure set. Among
Speaker 1: its many draws was an outing along the quote eighteen
Speaker 1: mile drive. This is a Unich loop around Pacific Grove
Speaker 1: and the surrounding area that started and ended at the hotel.
Speaker 1: Was a very carefully planned pleasure outing away to get
Speaker 1: wealthy visitors into carriages and touring the area. The hope
Speaker 1: was that seeing all of the coastline and the natural
Speaker 1: beauty of the land would encourage them to invest in
Speaker 1: Crocker's dream of a high end developed community. The name
Speaker 1: was eventually amended to seventeen Mile Drive to more accurately
Speaker 1: reflect the route after it had been altered. It does
Speaker 1: still exist today, although some of it goes through gated communities,
Speaker 1: and the hotel had a fire in seven that caused
Speaker 1: significant damage, but it was rebuilt again very quickly in
Speaker 1: the same style and it continued its prosperity. In Thomas
Speaker 1: Edison Incorporated made a movie of several buggies of tourists
Speaker 1: passing by the front of the hotel. You can find
Speaker 1: that footage on the Library of Congress's site, and it
Speaker 1: is quite sweet. It's very cute to watch them driving
Speaker 1: by and waving and looking very very happy in front
Speaker 1: of this Victorian driveway team. The property and eighteen thousand
Speaker 1: acres of surrounding land were purchased by Samuel F. B.
Speaker 1: Morse in partnership with a number of other investors. This
Speaker 1: established the Del Monte Properties Company, which eventually became the
Speaker 1: Pebble Beach Company. The hotel was renovated and updated, and
Speaker 1: Morse developed the surrounding area as a sports and leisure complex,
Speaker 1: including of course, golf courses. Yeah, there was already a
Speaker 1: golf course, and then he added to that. And now,
Speaker 1: of course Pebble Beach is known for its golf courses.
Speaker 1: Uh In the sprawling Victorian hotel burned down and it
Speaker 1: was rebuilt, but this time in Spanish revival style. When
Speaker 1: Hotel del Monte reopened two years later, more than three
Speaker 1: thousand people were on hand to celebrate. After Steinbeck's time
Speaker 1: living in Monterey, the hotel was requisitioned by the Navy
Speaker 1: as a school center to train people, and then the
Speaker 1: Navy bought it in seven and today it serves as
Speaker 1: the main building for the Navy's post graduate school. In
Speaker 1: an opera rates under the name Herman Hall, we're about
Speaker 1: to talk about the industry that gave the area its name,
Speaker 1: but before we dig into that, let's take another quick
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Of course, Cannary Row is named for cannaries,
Speaker 1: but the Monterey area didn't actually see its first cannary
Speaker 1: until nineteen o two. There's a lot of fishing going
Speaker 1: on there, but not canning, and it wasn't even on
Speaker 1: the stretch that first one that would become canary row.
Speaker 1: Up to that point, the fishing industry had been dominated
Speaker 1: by the Chinese fisherman who dried fish and shipped it away,
Speaker 1: or as we said, sold it to markets in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: But as competitors grew in number, the nature of Monterey's
Speaker 1: fishing business changed. The first cannary was opened by a
Speaker 1: man named Frank E. Booth. Booth had been doing business
Speaker 1: in Monterey since the nineties. He was president of the
Speaker 1: Sacramento River Packers Association. He would make the journey down
Speaker 1: to Monterey and have salmon shipps to his packing facilities,
Speaker 1: but he soon realized it would make a lot more
Speaker 1: sense to just open the cannery right there in moderate
Speaker 1: He tried twice, with mediocre results, to open canning facilities there,
Speaker 1: first with a small packing shed that folded because he
Speaker 1: had a hard time getting contracts with fisherman who already
Speaker 1: had their own deals with San Francisco businesses. He made
Speaker 1: another stab at a canary in nineteen o one, but
Speaker 1: there was competition, this time in the form of a
Speaker 1: small canary with a smoke house that had been opened
Speaker 1: by a man named Hr. Robbins, and then in nineteen
Speaker 1: o two Boost operation was destroyed by a fire. Robbins
Speaker 1: was also struggling financially at this point, not from fire
Speaker 1: but just from other issues, so Booth bought out Robbins
Speaker 1: and expanded his smoking and canning operation considerably. That same year,
Speaker 1: Japanese immigrant Otosa Borrow Noda also opened a cannery called
Speaker 1: Montery Fishing and Canning Company. Noda had an American partner
Speaker 1: in the cannery named Henry Malpas. But even before the cannery,
Speaker 1: Noda had a keen insight about the potential for the area.
Speaker 1: He had started working there as a lumberjack for the
Speaker 1: Pacific Improvement Company, but he soon started a fishing colony
Speaker 1: and Monterey with more than five dozen other Japanese men.
Speaker 1: While they fished for abalone, their real focus was salmon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had mentioned the Pacific Improvement Company before. They were
Speaker 1: basically the correlated company that worked with the Southern Pacific
Speaker 1: Railroad to handle property and construction and whatnot, So they
Speaker 1: really were an incredibly powerful company within the Monterey area
Speaker 1: prior to this. To UH, the Japanese focus on salmon fishing.
Speaker 1: There had been a belief that salmon were fairly fished
Speaker 1: out in Monterey Bay. The catch that people were able
Speaker 1: to bring in of salmon had fallen off considerably, but
Speaker 1: Noda and the Japanese fishermen used different techniques and fishing
Speaker 1: gear evolved, and by the end of the first decade
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, there were a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: five salmon boats counted in Monterey Bay, and more than
Speaker 1: three quarters of those were owned by Japanese fishermen who
Speaker 1: were doing very well. So this is a lot of
Speaker 1: salmon talk, which maybe a little puzzling if you know
Speaker 1: that Cannary Row is famous for its sardines. But before
Speaker 1: World War One, most of the salmon caught in Monterey
Speaker 1: Bay was shipped to Europe, specifically Germany, and most of
Speaker 1: the sardines that made it to tables in the Bay
Speaker 1: area came from France. But the onset of war disrupted
Speaker 1: all those shipping routes, of course, so things started to
Speaker 1: shift for the businesses along Ocean View Avenue. There was
Speaker 1: demand for sardines in the area, and during World War One,
Speaker 1: the cannery business at Monterey Bay grew immensely. More than
Speaker 1: half a dozen new canning facilities sprang up, and this
Speaker 1: is a time when Sicilian fishermen really innovated and set
Speaker 1: the stage for Ocean View Avenue to eventually become known
Speaker 1: which did not happen until World War Two as the
Speaker 1: sardine capital of the world. That name, we should mention
Speaker 1: is not really accurate though, as many towns that name
Speaker 1: themselves will do, they don't always really have the facts
Speaker 1: behind them. No way is the winner there um. But
Speaker 1: the Sicilian fisherman did bring a new way to catch
Speaker 1: fish with them. They first used an open style boat
Speaker 1: and net that they had brought from the Mediterranean and
Speaker 1: used the fishing techniques from there, and then in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen twenties, per sign ships were brought into the
Speaker 1: area and that significantly increased to catch that fishermen were
Speaker 1: able to bring in. This method involves a huge, huge
Speaker 1: net that's deployed in a circle around a school of
Speaker 1: fish with a circumference as big as a quarter mile.
Speaker 1: The nets bottom is also very deep, as deep as
Speaker 1: two ft, and after it's corralled all these fish into
Speaker 1: one location, the net would be pulled in tight like
Speaker 1: a draw string purse and then all the fish would
Speaker 1: be trapped in there and all of its scooped just
Speaker 1: right into a ship. This type of fishing is still
Speaker 1: done today in some places, and it's pretty problematic. One,
Speaker 1: it is an indiscriminate way to catch fish. Everything in
Speaker 1: the area gets caught, regardless of whether it's the kind
Speaker 1: of fish who are actually fishing or Two. It leads
Speaker 1: to over fishing, which ultimately collapsed the industry as the
Speaker 1: bay was depleted. Yeah, there are plenty of videos you
Speaker 1: can watch that are very sad about per sign fishing today.
Speaker 1: Just know if you want to see how it's done,
Speaker 1: you have to very carefully navigate those waters online. But
Speaker 1: the sardines from Monterey Bay are not the same as
Speaker 1: the ones from the North Atlantic. They are much larger,
Speaker 1: almost twice the size, and they have a higher oil content.
Speaker 1: They actually had to be called a different thing to
Speaker 1: be exported because they were not considered sardines by everybody.
Speaker 1: Uh And a lot of them, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: as many as two thirds at a time, were never
Speaker 1: intended for food usage, but for a process called reduction,
Speaker 1: That is a process where they are ground down and
Speaker 1: made into fish meal. And fertilizer, and we're gonna come
Speaker 1: back to reduction in just a moment, because it had
Speaker 1: a significant impact on the life of Monterey and also
Speaker 1: had some lasting implications. On September four, TEO, a terrible
Speaker 1: fire started when lightning struck two oil tanks that were
Speaker 1: owned by Associated Oil Company. This could have easily destroyed
Speaker 1: all of Ocean View Avenue and its cannery industry, and
Speaker 1: it nearly did. Several buildings and two canneries went up
Speaker 1: in flames. Two soldiers from the Presidio died fighting the fire.
Speaker 1: Thanks only to random luck of the wind changing direction,
Speaker 1: the rest of Ocean View Avenue and the neighborhood were spared.
Speaker 1: This was incidentally, less than two weeks before the fire
Speaker 1: that destroyed the Hotel del Monti. Although the two fires
Speaker 1: were unrelated. What a thing for a community, though, To
Speaker 1: have like those two fires so close together. You have
Speaker 1: to feel like you live on bad luck lean at
Speaker 1: that point, I think. During the depression, which of course
Speaker 1: deeply impacted the entire country significantly, the decision was made
Speaker 1: that the industry in Monterey was going to prioritize reduction
Speaker 1: rather than canning because it was making more money. Doing
Speaker 1: that than selling sardines as edibles, and this meant that
Speaker 1: the fishermen and the canary workers of Monterey were able
Speaker 1: to make it through this difficult time for the most part,
Speaker 1: which is great. But this was a short sighted solution
Speaker 1: because the purse signed fishing was ramped up to keep
Speaker 1: the Montere economy afloat, which meant the bay was very
Speaker 1: much over fished, although it was not yet quite depleted.
Speaker 1: But World Wars you saw a continuation of over fishing,
Speaker 1: so this time because people needed the sardines for food,
Speaker 1: there were heated debates about what was happening and warnings
Speaker 1: that were issued by the science community, but business interest
Speaker 1: one out and the fishing and the canning continued. There's
Speaker 1: this bit of irony to the timing of Steinbeck's book
Speaker 1: that made this area famous. So Cannary row made this
Speaker 1: troop of ocean view something of a household name and
Speaker 1: led to it actually being renamed Canary Row in. But
Speaker 1: this was happening as the industry that led to that
Speaker 1: nickname was completely caving in the last half of the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties saw progressively weaker and weaker numbers in terms
Speaker 1: of catch. It's kind of like a depressing I looked
Speaker 1: at one table of like the poundage of catch they
Speaker 1: were taking in every day, and as it depletes, it's
Speaker 1: just a completely depressing line. Uh. And there were some
Speaker 1: canaries that had this idea that they could like keep
Speaker 1: it going a little bit by having fish shipped into
Speaker 1: their facilities that they would then can and ship back out.
Speaker 1: But that was not a long term solution, and over
Speaker 1: time Cannery Rowe sort of became a ghost town as
Speaker 1: one business after another went under and it left all
Speaker 1: of these cannaries and warehouses just empty. The late nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties and early nineteen sixties brought yet another wave of change. Slowly,
Speaker 1: daring restaurant tours moved into the area, hoping to draw
Speaker 1: tourists to the ocean side, and it started the tourism
Speaker 1: rebuild of Canary Row. The Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in
Speaker 1: nine four, and it's footprint covered the site of the
Speaker 1: former Hofden Cannery as well as the Chinese fishing village
Speaker 1: that started the fishing industry in Monterey. Over time, the
Speaker 1: remaining warehouses have been repurposed and renovated, filled with things
Speaker 1: like shops and restaurants and art galleries. Today when you go,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, um, what you would expect in
Speaker 1: a really charming seaside tourist town. Like the aquarium is
Speaker 1: a huge draw, of course, and it's a really really
Speaker 1: fantastic facility, but then it is it's like a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, shops and the kind of like cute
Speaker 1: stuff you would find in a seaside town. Um. That
Speaker 1: beach where they initially moved the Chinese fishing village has
Speaker 1: a little memorial wall there with a carving of fisherman
Speaker 1: on it, but there's nothing else there. People like launched
Speaker 1: their kayaks and stuff out of there. It's just a
Speaker 1: really lovely place to visit. But it's one of those
Speaker 1: places where if you really look around, a lot of
Speaker 1: the buildings still have like old labels on them, and
Speaker 1: you can re a lies like that. This is rebuilt
Speaker 1: into something that had gone almost dormant for a while,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a fascinating aspect of it. Um.
Speaker 1: I love Monterey and clearly need to go back as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible, um because it's a really beautiful place
Speaker 1: and you can go do fun things at the aquarium.
Speaker 1: Last time I went, I accidentally stumble into with my
Speaker 1: dear friend a night where they were doing a like
Speaker 1: an after hours event at the aquarium where they had
Speaker 1: all this amazing like ticket tasting food where you would
Speaker 1: like spend twenty dollars and get five tickets and then
Speaker 1: you could go around from table to table and try
Speaker 1: interesting little Oh I was heaven. I was like, we
Speaker 1: stumbled into the best night of our lives. Uh So
Speaker 1: that was fabulous, Thank you Monterey Bay Aquarium. Also, they're
Speaker 1: doing a lot about conservation and sustainable seafood, which is
Speaker 1: always important. Yeah, it's I was just thinking, as as
Speaker 1: I have no idea if there is a correlation between
Speaker 1: the Monterey Bay Aquariums focused on sustainable seafood and the
Speaker 1: history of Monterey. Yes, you know the answer. I like
Speaker 1: how I was just sort of sitting here, like I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's related. Not a mistake. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: they're very aware that, uh you know, they're they're in
Speaker 1: effect because over fishing really just bottomed out that that
Speaker 1: entire industry there. Um. Yeah, we should point out that
Speaker 1: the aquariums position does not cover the entirety of where
Speaker 1: that Chinese fishing village once stood. The main location of
Speaker 1: that village is now the site of the Stanford Hopkins
Speaker 1: Marine Station and it there are different, um sort of
Speaker 1: like factoids and studies you can read about fish coming
Speaker 1: back and what that is. But they are also some
Speaker 1: that are like it's never recovered and it will never recover.
Speaker 1: There was just too too much depletion for any of
Speaker 1: those like fish communities to really really regain um, any
Speaker 1: kind of like permanent in that area. UM. Anyway, that's
Speaker 1: Canary Row and Monterey, which I love. If you get
Speaker 1: a chance and you have not been highly recommend it,
Speaker 1: it's awfully fun. It's also just a beautiful drive. If
Speaker 1: you're in San Francisco for a trip for vacation and
Speaker 1: you want to drive out to Monterey, it's a really
Speaker 1: pretty drive. I'm clearly a big fan. Yeah. I have
Speaker 1: two pieces of listener mail. One sort of involves see life. Um.
Speaker 1: It mostly just made me chuckle. It's from our listener Ariel,
Speaker 1: and she said, I've really been enjoying your podcast in
Speaker 1: the last year or show. I greatly appreciate the number
Speaker 1: of episodes about cool women and minorities I am disappointed
Speaker 1: to have not learned about before. I wanted the email
Speaker 1: to tell you about two things in an online trivia game,
Speaker 1: we were asked about the Anglosans of our war and
Speaker 1: how many hours it lasted. I knew the answer was
Speaker 1: less than one hour because of your podcast, and was
Speaker 1: filled with a great sense of probably undeserved pride. It's
Speaker 1: weirdly fulfilling to know the answer to a random trivia question.
Speaker 1: Yes it is, uh too. I enjoyed the recent episode
Speaker 1: about Catherine the Great, and I thought you would enjoy
Speaker 1: a picture by Katherine Miller art of Queen Catherine the
Speaker 1: Great White Shark. She uses animal puns to create gorgeous
Speaker 1: and fun art. It is an absolutely marvelous piece of work.
Speaker 1: It makes me chuckle and it's just beautifully done. Uh
Speaker 1: Now I want to go explore Katherine Miller's available prince
Speaker 1: and get myself into all kinds of trouble. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Ariel for introducing me to a new problem
Speaker 1: in a good way. Our Our second piece of listener
Speaker 1: mail today is from our listener Anne Marie. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is another one that touches on our emergency medicine to
Speaker 1: Parter and she says, Hi, ladies, I work at in
Speaker 1: of the Alexandria Hospital and there is a big history
Speaker 1: section in the visitor entrance to the hospital. Because we've
Speaker 1: been around for so long since eighteen seventy two, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of interesting history to share, so I
Speaker 1: thought I would send a few photos I took. Please
Speaker 1: let me know if any of these don't show up properly. So, um,
Speaker 1: there's like some beautiful stained glass that memorializes the founding
Speaker 1: of it. And what was really really interesting is that
Speaker 1: it there is discussion of the Alexandria Plan, which was
Speaker 1: that initial plan to develop permanent emergency room doctor programs
Speaker 1: rather than just having people rotate in from other UH
Speaker 1: divisions of the hospital to cover emergency care, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. So she works in a place that completely
Speaker 1: changed the way we look at medicine today, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you, thank you. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us, you can do so at
Speaker 1: History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us on social media as Missed in History, and
Speaker 1: we would love it if you had subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker 1: You can do that on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is you listen. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Missed in History Class is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.