WEBVTT - Cannery Row 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.440 of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. And a 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.960 little bit of business before we get into today's episode. Uh. 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.400 We normally, in the course of any given year would 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.080 probably tour a little bit hell little maybe some live shows, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.120 maybe someone off live shows that were asked to go 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.040 to places and do them, or we would have our 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.360 own tour. Uh. And one of the best parts about 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.239 those for us is getting to do Q and A 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.159 with the audience, and we really miss it, so uh, 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.680 we thought it might be a good thing to do 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.200 our own little Q and A that is a non 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:51.919 touring version in which you are listeners can send us 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:56.240 questions uh and then we will pull as many as 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.240 we can and make an episode out of us answering 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:01.680 those questions. So, if you would like to submit a 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:03.840 question for a Q and A episode, you need to 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.200 do that by June twelve. Uh. And you can do 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.280 that by sending it to History Podcast at I heart 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:14.080 radio dot com and that way we will get it 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.120 and hopefully read it and then answer it in the 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.840 It could be your burning questions about previous episodes, how 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:28.600 we record something totally unrelated that you've either thought about 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.560 or wondered about, or you know, you can ask us 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.039 questions about ourselves. Depending on how personal they get, we 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.399 may or may not include them, but please do send 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.440 those to us. Again. That is History Podcast at iHeart 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.000 radio dot com and we need them by June twelve, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.560 so we can't wait to hear from you. Now on 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.400 to today's episode. Uh. John Steinbeck published a novel it 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.760 became very popular called Cannary Row, which is kind of 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.320 a slice of life look at a small community in Monterey, California, 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.600 And Stiby had actually been born in nearby Selina's and 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:04.800 then lived in Monterey for more than a decade from 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.320 nineteen thirty nine with his first wife, And that novel 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:10.800 is really a very loving look at the place and 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.120 the people who lived there. And he wrote it though 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.520 after he had moved away. But Canary Row is of 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.480 course a real place, although it was not called that 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:21.680 until after the novel was written. It was just Ocean 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.440 View Avenue. Before that it was just wagon tracks, and 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.480 before that it was occupied by indigenous peoples and did 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:32.320 not have roads. Uh, they'll probably paths today. Canary Row 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.000 is a really busy tourism center. If you have ever 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:36.760 been there, you know what I'm talking about. But I 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:38.480 thought it would be interesting to look at some of 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.839 its history, from before it was home to any white settlers, 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.320 through the heyday of its time as a fishing and 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.120 canning center, and then how it evolved to be the 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.600 place it is today. So true story on the genesis 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.600 or this episode. I have been really, really quite comfortable 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.560 and content being home all the time through this pandemic isolation. 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:00.400 I feel like I'm one of the luck elands that 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.359 I It has not troubled me. I mean, the pandemic 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.840 itself is stressful, but in terms of just having to 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:07.960 stay in my home for a couple of months, that 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.799 has not been a problem at all. But I'm missing 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.440 travel a little bit. It started to express itself to 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.720 me by just having dreams about trips I have been on. 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.320 They're not fantastical, They're literally like watching movies of trips 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.160 out down UH. And one of them UH is a 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.560 trip that I have been waxing a little rhapsodic about, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.760 which was a day last year that I just spent 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.320 driving out too and hanging out in Monterey with one 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:34.880 of my dearest friends. Uh So, I thought this would 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.000 be a nice way to revisit that. And I hope 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.440 that we can all go wherever it hurts desire soon 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.800 and all of us with travel bugs or anyone who 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:44.800 is getting a little tired of being in the house 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:49.040 will soon be past that. So I very similarly have 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:55.240 been simultaneously feeling very lucky and missing getting out and 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.440 doing some stuff. So a lot of sources that look 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.920 at the history of Canary Row start with the settlement 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.680 of a Chinese fishing village in the eighteen fifties. Obviously 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.200 that's an important part of the story, but it also 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.040 leaves out a really significant precursor to that, which is 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.320 the Alonei people. The Alonei had lived along what is 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:19.240 now the California coast from Big Sur north to San Francisco. 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.840 For context, Monterey is about thirty miles north of Big Sur, 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.080 and the alone were not all grouped together under one 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.320 umbrella for a long time. In the mid seventeen hundreds, 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.080 when they become part of the record for European settlers, 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.000 there were approximately ten thousand Alonei people living on the coast, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.720 spread across forty to fifty different tribal communities. The languages 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.560 among these communities and tribes, which you will sometimes see 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.040 called tribe let's varied, and again they did not consider 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.039 themselves one people, although it's certainly possible they may have 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.280 stemmed from the same group at one point thousands of 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.479 years back, and they mixed socially, including intermarrying among the 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.920 various groups. The subgroup that is most closely linked to 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.080 the immediate Monterey area was the rooms or rooms in 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.320 which will also see it spelled as uh. They were 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.400 most local to the area we're talking about today. The 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.600 Oloni lived through hunting and gathering with their own art 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.240 and culture in the Bay area for more than ten 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.640 thousand years up until the arrival of Europeans that we 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.280 mentioned just a moment ago. As early as sixteen o two, 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.560 the people native to the region probably had some kind 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.800 of contact with Spanish explorers. That was the year that 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.440 Sebastian de Visa kind of visited the Bay area looking 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.480 for a place to harbor ships. Spanish explorers Don Gaspar 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.520 de Portola and father Juan Crespy were some of the 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.919 first to visit the area with the intent of actually 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.080 staying there. But that didn't happen until much later in 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.080 the late seventeen sixties. Accounts written by the Spanish in 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.320 those early years mentioned the numerous established villages of the 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.680 Alone who, although they referred to them as costano initially 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:02.880 literally just meaning coastal people um, that evolved into coast 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.159 to ohen. Yeah, you will still see sometimes in older 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.200 scholarly articles the Alonei referred to as coast and Owen's 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.560 and the Spanish did indeed set up mission settlements as planned. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.000 There were seven built between the years of seventeen seventy 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:23.320 and sevente Dolores, San Carlos, Solidad, San Juan Bautista, Santa Cruz, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.800 Santa Clara, and San Jose. And as the missions moved in, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.719 the Alonei worked with the settlers. Often they would move 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.960 their huts closer to the nearest mission, and they started 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.760 integrating into those mission communities as they were evangelized to 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.320 leave their tribal ways behind and convert to Christianity. This 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:46.920 proved disastrous. By eighteen fifty, the Alone population was deeply depleted, 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:52.000 diseases contracted from the European settlers, high infant mortality rates 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:56.599 and genocide. Under the guise of protecting white settlers had 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.200 claimed the lives of most of the indigenous peoples of 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.520 the coast. There are contemporary organizations that have established groups 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.000 of Alonei descendants and traced back through those mission records. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.440 They've regained some of their tribal culture, including reviving some 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.280 of those languages that had been spoken by the tribelets 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:18.400 that are now grouped under the colony umbrella. Additionally, there 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.480 are efforts being made to get federal recognition from the 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.320 Bureau of Indian Affairs and an ongoing effort in California 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.400 to have an Alonei cultural center established on land that 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.520 was taken from them previously. So when Chinese immigrants settled 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.920 in the area just as California was beginning its statehood, 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.520 there was not much left of the Alonei to document. 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.520 And while the Chinese settlers in the Bay Area and 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.040 specifically Monterey were essential in establishing what would become the 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:52.200 area's identity, their origins there are less than spectacularly documented. 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.040 For one, there's a lack of clarity about where specifically 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.800 they first started living and fishing. The first camp might 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:01.720 have been in a place that was a few miles 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.080 south of the now famous waterfront strip of Canary Row 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.680 at Point Lobos and on Carmel Bay. Coming from a 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.760 fishing culture, these settlers from Asia are believed to have 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.680 quickly realized just how ample their potential take was there 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.280 on the Pacific coast of North America, and to have 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.360 quickly set up additional camps at Pescadero and Point Alones. 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.200 If you look up Point Alone is on a modern map, 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:30.480 you'll see it's right there in the mixt of the 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.280 tourist district that has grown around Canary Row. Yeah, that 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.720 really is kind of a central point of all of this. 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:39.560 And by the mid eighteen fifties, so just a few 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.280 years after they started fishing, their hundreds of Chinese fishermen 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:48.199 were turning the area into a commercial fishing enterprise. Initially 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.160 they would dive and gather abalone, and then they moved 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.679 on to other catches and different fishing when competition from 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.680 other fishermen, who realized that these Chinese fishermen were really 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:04.280 onto something potentially um fiscally beneficial, kind of made it 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.080 a little more difficult for the Chinese to continue to 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:11.440 do so, so they started fishing for yellowtail, flounder, cod 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.880 and sardines. Among others. In the next fifty years, fishing 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.920 would become a massive industry as these settlements grew into 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:24.600 villages and ultimately into larger and more established communities that 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.880 were part of the growing Monterey area. In the early 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.920 nineteen hundreds, daily catches ranging from an estimated two hundred 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.160 to eight hundred pounds were coming into Monterey through the 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.640 Chinese fisheries, and some of the fish was dried and 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.400 then sent back to China. I read one thing that 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:43.839 this was kind of a trick about salt import that 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:45.880 they would dry the fish, packet and salt and send 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:47.800 it back and they could get around some of the 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.520 taxation of salt that was moving uh. And then the 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.800 junks that would arrive in Monterey Bay would offload goods 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.000 for importers there and those would eventually move to San Francisco, 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.280 and then they would reload with all of this dried 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.880 fish to take at home, and some of the fish 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.959 was also sold to markets in San Francisco. The main 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.040 fishing village that developed eventually became known as China Point. 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.840 That's kind of centered around the Point Alones area, and 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.560 it was running a busy and successful business. But of 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.199 course that level of success from an immigrant community led 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.720 to conflict with other groups because of racism. We've talked 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.319 so many times about laws that were explicitly anti Chinese 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.160 in the nineteenth century, including the Chinese Exclusion Act, which 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.640 forbid immigration from China. But even for people who were 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.640 living entirely with the law and who had contributed to 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.559 the economic success of the area, there was still plenty 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.160 of racism to deal with. Things were relatively peaceful for 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.440 most of the eighteen hundreds, but in the early nineteen hundreds, 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:49.000 the Chinese population in Monterey, many of whom had had 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.439 been born in California at that point and where US citizens, 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.200 faced growing adversity when it came to their neighbors. And 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.160 we're going to get into the complaints that started about 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.800 the Chinese Fish village after we first take a break 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:14.160 and hear from our sponsors in nineteen o four, complaints 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.120 about the smell of Point Alnis and it's drying fish 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.200 escalated rapidly. That land that the Chinese fishing village was 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.400 on was leased to the village by the Pacific Improvement Company. 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.280 We're going to come back to this entity in a bit, 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.840 and the white community started pressuring the leaseholder to evict 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.280 the Chinese fisherman over this issue of the smell. A 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.439 notice was issued by the landlord that all leases would 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.240 be canceled, and leaders from the fishing village then approached 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.760 the Pacific Improvement Company and they wanted to negotiate and 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.440 find a mutually beneficial solution, and this started to take 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.439 shape as a search for another location within the p 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.199 i c s property holdings that would meet the needs 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.640 of the fishermen. But as this potential move was being 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.320 worked out, another event that we've talked about before on 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.040 the show took place, and that was the San Francisco 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.559 earthquake and fires of April six. We mentioned in that 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.440 episode that some of San Francisco's Chinatown residents moved to 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.760 other Chinese communities as refugees, and this was the case 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.080 on Monterey. About a hundred and fifty people moved into 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.640 the village at Point Alans and for about a month, 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.720 the landlord backed off of this whole eviction plan. Discussion 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.000 resumed in May, this time of a possible move to 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.400 attractive land at Point Pinos. Yeah. To be clear, I 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.880 don't think they were like, oh, we're in dire times. 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.600 Will be nice. They were busy with their own property 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.840 damage when they kind of stopped pestering them about eviction. 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:45.600 But then as these negotiations that restarted, uh, we're kind 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:47.440 of moving along. But they did not get very far 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.680 because a fire started in a barn that was part 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.000 of the Chinese fishing village, and that fire ultimately consumed 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.480 most of the buildings surrounding it and basically the majority 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.840 of the village. Whether or not this was a case 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:04.720 of parson remains unknown. Ah, you can still find discussion 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.600 of it. Uh, but everybody who pretty agrees will never 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.680 know the truth. White spectators watched this blaze as the 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.080 village's residents ran in and out, trying to save everything 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.160 they could, but a lot of times things that were 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.160 saved were then looted as soon as the owner ran 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.839 back to try to rescue more of their belongings. There 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:29.240 are accounts that some of the spectators openly cheered as 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.880 they watched. Only a few buildings were left standing afterward. 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:35.640 So if you heard that episode on the nineteen o 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.880 six fires in San Francisco, you may recall that many 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.400 of the residents of San Francisco's Chinatown refused to leave 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.160 even though the city was hoping that would be an 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.840 excuse to push them out, and ultimately they rebuilt. A 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.800 similar thing took place in Monterey after the fire. There, 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.720 while only a few buildings were left, those same leaders 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.040 who had begun negotiating with their landlord let a movement 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.040 of people who refused to be pushed out of a 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.760 community that they had built. They staged a sit in 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.560 which led to a negotiation of a new lease, this 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.680 time at mccabee Beach, just south of Point Alonus. While 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.200 some of the village community stayed and tried to make 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.200 a go of it in their new location, most dispersed 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.080 to other areas, and ultimately, once squid drying was banned 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:24.680 inside city limits, the Macabi site was abandoned as well. Yeah, 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.200 for clarity, if you know the area, um, this is 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.560 not These two places are not far from each other, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.400 like you can walk it in five to ten minutes. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.720 It's all pretty close together, which is just kind of 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.320 geographically interesting to me. For three years in the early 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.560 two thousands, there was a large scale archaeological dig and 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.040 analysis that was conducted at Point Alone's and it turned 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.720 up some of the only material remains of the once 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:54.280 robust Chinese American fishing community there. In eighteen seventy four, 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.800 a group called the Patrons of Husbandry, which was a 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.800 farmer's coalition more commonly called the Rangers, built the region's 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:06.520 first steam powered railroad that ran from Salinas Valley to Monterrey. 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.920 The grangers entire point of existence was to fight monopolistic 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.360 grain transport, so in establishing a line that could take 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.200 the grain from Salina's two ships and Moterey, they were 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.520 trying to break this monopoly that had been held by 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:23.560 the Southern Pacific Railroad. Southern Pacific was costing the local 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.640 industry as much as two thousand dollars a year in 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:31.000 freight costs, and while this did force competition, which resulted 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.800 in Southern Pacific extending its own lines a little bit 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.280 further and lowering freight charges, it was ultimately not a 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:42.320 successful venture. Storms caused bridge collapses on the line several 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.080 different times in the first few years, and an engine 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.520 house burned down in eighteen seventy seven, and then a 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.520 bitter challenge over executive leadership that ended up becoming a 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:57.360 State Supreme Court case further destabilized the company. In fall 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.040 eighteen seventy nine, Southern Pacific bought the Monterey and Selina's 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.320 Valley Railroad, so it ended up in the end only 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.200 adding to Southern Pacific's monopoly in the area. But the 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:12.040 bigger impact, at least for Monterey, was that this suddenly 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:16.920 made the ocean side town completely accessible to additional large 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.360 scale business and also to tourism, and that meant an 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.200 entirely new revenue stream for the community. Charles Crocker, and 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.960 executive with the railroad, immediately saw the financial potential of 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:33.120 making Monterey a tourist destination, so, using Southern Pacific's power, influence, 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.480 and property, he had a hotel built with incredible speed 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.960 to accommodate what he believed would be a huge money maker. 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:44.360 That was the Hotel del Monte. Architect Arthur Brown, Sr. 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:47.680 Who worked for the railroad, designed the sprawling Victorian resort, 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.400 and it was a big, showy place. You can see 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.880 pictures of it. It's quite beautiful and while it was 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:57.000 sometimes called Crocker's folly during construction by disbelievers who thought 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.400 that no one would pay to visit a fishing town, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.720 the hotel was in fact a massive success. Hotel del 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.040 Monte opened on June third, eighteen eighty, and within a 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.920 month it had turned a profit of eleven thousand, three 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.760 hundred dollars. In the first month and a half it 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.040 was open, more than three thousand booking requests had had 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.080 to be turned away because the luxury hotel just couldn't 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.959 accommodate all the people who wanted to visit. Yeah, they 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.159 had I think a little over a hundred rooms and 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.640 it was just like never ending calls. Can we book 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.960 as day? No? In fact no. Uh. The resort was 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.840 on a seven thousand acre parcel of land, and it 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.080 had its own botanical garden, as well as numerous other amenities. 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.159 In September eighteen eighty, President Rutherford Behayes stayed at the 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.959 Hotel Del Monte, and he praised his visit as quote 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.879 one of the most agreeable episodes of our lives. Because 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.160 of the reputation the hotel enjoyed immediately upon opening, it 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.639 was a huge draw for the growing leisure set. Among 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.960 its many draws was an outing along the quote eighteen 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.919 mile drive. This is a Unich loop around Pacific Grove 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.960 and the surrounding area that started and ended at the hotel. 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.160 Was a very carefully planned pleasure outing away to get 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.960 wealthy visitors into carriages and touring the area. The hope 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.560 was that seeing all of the coastline and the natural 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.359 beauty of the land would encourage them to invest in 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.520 Crocker's dream of a high end developed community. The name 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.960 was eventually amended to seventeen Mile Drive to more accurately 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.800 reflect the route after it had been altered. It does 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.480 still exist today, although some of it goes through gated communities, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.040 and the hotel had a fire in seven that caused 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.920 significant damage, but it was rebuilt again very quickly in 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:44.760 the same style and it continued its prosperity. In Thomas 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.200 Edison Incorporated made a movie of several buggies of tourists 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.680 passing by the front of the hotel. You can find 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.040 that footage on the Library of Congress's site, and it 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.240 is quite sweet. It's very cute to watch them driving 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:57.520 by and waving and looking very very happy in front 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:02.160 of this Victorian driveway team. The property and eighteen thousand 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.600 acres of surrounding land were purchased by Samuel F. B. 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.520 Morse in partnership with a number of other investors. This 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.879 established the Del Monte Properties Company, which eventually became the 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.639 Pebble Beach Company. The hotel was renovated and updated, and 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.520 Morse developed the surrounding area as a sports and leisure complex, 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.280 including of course, golf courses. Yeah, there was already a 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.920 golf course, and then he added to that. And now, 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:30.280 of course Pebble Beach is known for its golf courses. 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.840 Uh In the sprawling Victorian hotel burned down and it 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.960 was rebuilt, but this time in Spanish revival style. When 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.240 Hotel del Monte reopened two years later, more than three 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:46.160 thousand people were on hand to celebrate. After Steinbeck's time 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.680 living in Monterey, the hotel was requisitioned by the Navy 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.000 as a school center to train people, and then the 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.560 Navy bought it in seven and today it serves as 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.600 the main building for the Navy's post graduate school. In 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.600 an opera rates under the name Herman Hall, we're about 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.440 to talk about the industry that gave the area its name, 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.200 but before we dig into that, let's take another quick 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:20.760 sponsor break. Of course, Cannary Row is named for cannaries, 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.840 but the Monterey area didn't actually see its first cannary 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.600 until nineteen o two. There's a lot of fishing going 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.199 on there, but not canning, and it wasn't even on 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.080 the stretch that first one that would become canary row. 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.679 Up to that point, the fishing industry had been dominated 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.600 by the Chinese fisherman who dried fish and shipped it away, 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.280 or as we said, sold it to markets in San Francisco. 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.120 But as competitors grew in number, the nature of Monterey's 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:49.080 fishing business changed. The first cannary was opened by a 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.360 man named Frank E. Booth. Booth had been doing business 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.280 in Monterey since the nineties. He was president of the 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.120 Sacramento River Packers Association. He would make the journey down 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.680 to Monterey and have salmon shipps to his packing facilities, 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:04.680 but he soon realized it would make a lot more 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.080 sense to just open the cannery right there in moderate 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.479 He tried twice, with mediocre results, to open canning facilities there, 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.439 first with a small packing shed that folded because he 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.520 had a hard time getting contracts with fisherman who already 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.160 had their own deals with San Francisco businesses. He made 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.280 another stab at a canary in nineteen o one, but 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:25.320 there was competition, this time in the form of a 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.679 small canary with a smoke house that had been opened 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.919 by a man named Hr. Robbins, and then in nineteen 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:35.400 o two Boost operation was destroyed by a fire. Robbins 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.480 was also struggling financially at this point, not from fire 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:41.520 but just from other issues, so Booth bought out Robbins 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:46.320 and expanded his smoking and canning operation considerably. That same year, 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.960 Japanese immigrant Otosa Borrow Noda also opened a cannery called 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.159 Montery Fishing and Canning Company. Noda had an American partner 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.000 in the cannery named Henry Malpas. But even before the cannery, 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.320 Noda had a keen insight about the potential for the area. 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.600 He had started working there as a lumberjack for the 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.120 Pacific Improvement Company, but he soon started a fishing colony 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:13.000 and Monterey with more than five dozen other Japanese men. 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:17.720 While they fished for abalone, their real focus was salmon. Yeah, 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:20.480 we had mentioned the Pacific Improvement Company before. They were 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:24.040 basically the correlated company that worked with the Southern Pacific 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.760 Railroad to handle property and construction and whatnot, So they 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:33.000 really were an incredibly powerful company within the Monterey area 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.480 prior to this. To UH, the Japanese focus on salmon fishing. 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.320 There had been a belief that salmon were fairly fished 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:43.240 out in Monterey Bay. The catch that people were able 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:46.760 to bring in of salmon had fallen off considerably, but 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:51.040 Noda and the Japanese fishermen used different techniques and fishing 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:53.719 gear evolved, and by the end of the first decade 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:56.520 of the twentieth century, there were a hundred and eighty 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.240 five salmon boats counted in Monterey Bay, and more than 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.199 three quarters of those were owned by Japanese fishermen who 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:04.840 were doing very well. So this is a lot of 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.919