The establishment of roadside rests and the construction of a bypass of
the state parks on the Redwood Highway are two vital and important
projects for California. Bills designed to accomplish these two
worthwhile developments were introduced and passed by both houses of the
Legislature, but they failed to receive executive approval.
In rejecting the bills, the Governor felt that they represented only a
part of an over-all development of a future state parks program. As the
head of this greatest of touring and motoring states, he fully
recognizes the merit of roadside rests and the Redwood Highway bypass
and indicates that they will receive further consideration during the
budget session of the Legislature in 1956.
The touring business is a billion dollar industry in California. It has
become an integral and even necessary part of our state’s economy.
Whatever money is spent to foster and develop our tourist trade is an
investment that will inevitably bring rich returns.
If California wishes to maintain its lead in the touring world, roadside
rests are a “must.” All but five of the 48 states already have roadside
rest programs. These carefully-picked, off-highway spots are places
where motorists may make stops in safety. They also encourage motorists
to keep highways clean by providing free facilities for eating lunches
and disposing of litter.
Building a bypass highway around the redwood groves in Humboldt County
is imperative. If a four-lane highway were plowed through them, along
the path of the present route, there would be a shameful destruction of
these beautiful and awe-inspiring marvels of the botanic kingdom. Some
groves would be virtually eliminated. However, a bypass development to
preserve these great trees can’t be put off much longer. The present
route carries an increasing burden of traffic and the need for an
improved highway grows more urgent each day.
Undoubtedly these two important measures will receive favorable action
during the Legislature’s budget session next year. In fact, California
can’t afford to let them be delayed too long.
_AROUND MONTEREY BAY
Land of California’s Beginnings Offers Many a Charm for the Visitor_
In few places do History and Tradition, Romance and the Wonders of
Nature combine to offer so much to the visitor as in the region
surrounding the Bay of Monterey.
In the north is Santa Cruz, with its famous beach and lovely gardens,
and backed by the Santa Cruz Mountains with their redwoods. Southward
are historic old Monterey and Carmel, the art colony which has now
become a Mecca for sight-seers and vacationists. South, again, extends a
road between the mountains and the sea which is one of California’s
scenic marvels.
And as if all this were not enough, Nature has endowed the inland
valleys with such soil and climate that agriculture flourishes on a
tremendous scale.
[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
Santa Cruz grew from the mission of the same name, founded in 1791, and
the settlement of Branciforte, established six years later. It might
have been any other community in pastoral California until the Gold
Rush, but then the newcomers demanded vegetables, which the Santa Cruz
area was able to supply, and lumber, for which the redwood forests in
the nearby mountains were raided.
[Illustration: _Surf and sea-fowl, cliffs and rocky islets,
characterize Monterey and Santa Cruz areas. View above is from
Lighthouse Point, Santa Cruz._]
Even in the seventies, however, this was known as a resort region, where
the nabobs from San Francisco came to take their ease and recuperate
from the strains of their latest coups of high finance. It came into
full stature with the building of its first beach casino in 1906. Though
this promptly burned, it was as promptly replaced with the ornate
structure the public sees today. This has been further improved and
renovated in recent times, as has also the Coconut Grove dancing
pavilion which is an outstanding beach feature. Beside the mile-long
beach of white sand with its beautifully clear water there is an indoor
salt-water plunge and a boardwalk which runs eastward to the San Lorenzo
River. These, with a varied assortment of rides and concessions, drew
2,000,000 visitors last year and bid fair to excel that figure by a
fifth this season.
The city has other claims to fame in that it is the scene of the annual
Miss California contest and the terminus of a yearly yacht race from San
Francisco.
In the Santa Cruz Art League Galleries is a life-size waxwork, “The Last
Supper,” modeled on DaVinci’s famous painting of the same name. In four
years it has been visited by more than 260,000 persons.
_Blue and Peaceful or Bleak and Storming, the Ocean Wields a
Never-Ending Influence Over the Region_
[Illustration: _Cormorants find Lone Sentinel Rock, off Seabright
Beach, a favored resting place._]
[Illustration: _Pleasure craft by scores find anchorage beside Santa
Cruz’ Municipal Wharf, where also fishing vessels moor and many an
angler drops a line._]
In the nearby mountains are the permanent convention sites of several
religious groups, one of which includes a building capable of seating
5,000 persons. These and other conventions rank virtually as an industry
in Santa Cruz’ economy. But Santa Cruz is more than a resort or
convention city. It is a city of flowers. The Spanish Garden at its city
hall is beautiful. The drive north along the ocean front takes the
visitor past bluffs which are ablaze with colorful succulents and
flowers. In season, whole hillsides south of the city flame with yellow
bush lupine. Some of these plants have trunks as thick through as a
man’s leg.
_PACIFIC OCEAN_
[Illustration: _Pelicans may be seen on every wharf and pier, almost
every rock, from Santa Cruz to Carmel. Wise looking old birds,
aren’t they?_]
Bulbs, cut flowers and nursery stock are the biggest crop in the Santa
Cruz area, though a vast quantity of strawberries is raised and the
loganberry was developed in a Santa Cruz garden by James H. Logan,
banker, attorney and superior judge, who crossed the wild blackberry
with the Lawton berry to produce the delectable result. Brussels sprouts
are another outstanding crop.
Santa Cruz also raises mushrooms, in old caves once used for aging wine
and in newer concrete structures.
The largest bulb farms are at Capitola, shipping 3,500,000 tulip, lily,
dahlia and begonia bulbs a year. As each of these in turn comes into
bloom these farms offer a sight to be seen nowhere else. Championing the
region’s claim to being the “Begonia Capital of the United States,” a
festival is held each year on the waters of Soquel Creek, with thousands
of blooms scattered over the water and colorful floating displays.
[Illustration: _For more than 2,000,000 visitors a year, Santa Cruz
means FUN—fun in the indigo-dark water, fun on the fine white beach,
fun ashore._]
San Lorenzo Canyon, which begins a bare stone’s throw from Santa Cruz,
is full of summer homes and resorts, including one famous inn where a
mountain stream runs through the dining room.
[Illustration: _This ancient span, moved from original site to
DeLaveaga Park, in Santa Cruz, recalls times when horsepower was
really horses._]
[Illustration: _Color beyond description decks bulb farms near
Capitola each autumn, well justifies the name “Begonia Capital of
the World.”_]
Up this canyon, too, is the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, better
known as “The Santa Cruz Big Trees.” The park comprises nearly 20,000
acres, but the “Big Trees” are a compact group, which may be seen in an
easy walk of about a mile.
Farther north is Big Basin Redwoods Park, the oldest and largest of the
State Park system, with many virgin growth trees and an interesting
“Nature Lodge” which shows, besides flora and fauna of the park, the
methods used in early day redwood lumbering.
[Illustration: _Wind and sea carve endlessly at the cliffs west of
Santa Cruz. This graceful arch in Natural Bridges State Park is one
of the results._]
In the city of Santa Cruz itself is Natural Bridges State Park, a
notable example of erosion, and along the coast in Santa Cruz County are
six other state parks—Seacliff Beach, where a World War I concrete
freighter is used for a fishing pier and a fine road parallels the
cliffs; Sunset Beach, with a high lookout and picnic ground under
twisted cypresses; Capitola Beach, where there is a special pool for
small fry; New Brighton Beach, Manresa Beach and Zmudowski Beach. At
some of these campsites are available.
All through the mountains are interesting roads: the Empire Grade route
from Santa Cruz through Bonnie Doon to Boulder Creek is particularly
pointed out to visitors. In spring, so are the mountain apple orchards
along the Valencia Creek route from Santa Cruz to Watsonville.
[Illustration: _MONTEREY BAY
Some principal points of interest and routes around the bay_]
REDWOODS
HENRY COWELL
REDWOODS
•SANTA CRUZ
Lorenzo River
Branciforte CO
CAPITOLA
•WATSONVILLE
Pajaro River
MOSS LANDING
CASTROVILLE
17 Mile Drive
PACIFIC GROVE
MONTEREY
_MONTEREY PENINSULA_
PEBBLE BEACH
CARMEL
POINT LOBOS
Carmel River
TO BIG SUR
Salinas River
FORD ORD MILITARY RESERVATION
•SALINAS
TO KING
• _Offices of the California State Automobile Association_
Highly scenic routes from the north to the Monterey Bay region are,
first, the Skyline Drive from San Francisco, then down to the San
Lorenzo Valley and on through its fine redwoods to Santa Cruz, and,
second, the beautiful highway which follows the shoreline from San
Francisco south. The main route over the mountains from Los Gatos to
Santa Cruz is spectacular. The highway from Santa Cruz to Watsonville is
a concrete ribbon between lovely rolling hills gay with color. On the
Hecker Pass route from the Santa Clara Valley to Watsonville you can see
redwoods, the whole coast of Monterey Bay, and four charming little
lakes. The Chittenden Pass route, used by railroad and highway,
traverses a gorge of real scenic interest.
[Illustration: _Big Basin Redwoods State Park, oldest and most
popular of the state system, acts as host to more than 500,000
visitors a year._]
[Illustration: _Main avenue of approach to Santa Cruz is this fine
highway from Los Gatos. Curving gently through the Santa Cruz
Mountains, it brings to view a wealth of lovely scenes. Under
construction is a by-pass which will take its traffic off Los Gatos’
streets._]
Santa Cruz has its face to the future. Monterey, at the other end of
Monterey Bay, never forgets that it was the place where history began
for this region.
It was in what is now the city of Monterey that Portola, first governor
of California, and Father Junipero Serra landed in 1770. Under an oak
tree near the shore the good father held a service and founded a
mission. A stone cross today marks the spot, though the mission was soon
removed to its present site at the mouth of the Carmel Valley to be away
from the presidio, or military post, which Portola set up. At this
mission Father Serra made his headquarters and from it he supervised the
building of the mission chain.
Under Spanish rule, presidio and mission were almost all the settlement
but after Mexico had gained independence, adobe homes grew up in the
hills, stores were built along the crooked streets and the Mexican
government, less averse to foreign trade than the Spaniards, built a
customs house. This still stands and, restored, houses a museum. It is
one of five State Historical Monuments in the region, the others being
the Serra landing place already mentioned: the Casa del Oro, which
housed a store: the house where Robert Louis Stevenson lived for a few
months late in 1879, and California’s First Theater, originally a
sailors’ boarding house.
There are also standing more than a score of other structures erected in
this Mexican era, including one built in 1835 by Thomas Oliver Larkin,
first United States consul at Monterey, and Colton Hall, meeting place
of the Constitutional Convention in 1849. This, like almost all the
other remaining buildings, has been restored.
Monterey has laid out a scenic route leading directly to or near all of
these historic structures, and also including several historic sites.
Visitors may traverse this route merely by following an orange line
painted on the street paving. At many points on it, special parking is
reserved for them.
Whichever way you turn, there is something to be seen in this region.
Just across from the Customs House is Fisherman’s Wharf, where the
restaurants would feel unhappy if they had to serve you today fish that
was caught as long ago as yesterday. Alongside it, the fishing fleet,
decked in all the colors of the rainbow, rides at anchor. Farther along
the beautiful ocean drive is the Hopkins Marine Institute, operated by
Stanford University, and beyond that is Pacific Grove, with its
beautiful marine park and beach at Lover’s Point and its famous
Butterfly Trees.
Each October, thousands of Monarch butterflies migrate from Canada and
Alaska to cluster on these pine trees in a small reservation known as
Butterfly Park.
How the butterflies know which trees are “home” no one can explain, for
they are hatched and pass through their chrysalis stage in the North.
Indeed, in recent years it appears they have become confused: the number
now visiting the original trees is greatly reduced and many of them are
frequenting other pines several blocks away.
[Illustration: _Home ports for several hundred fishing vessels are
Monterey, Santa Cruz and Moss Landing. This is part of the fleet
which bases at Monterey._]
_Santa Cruz Means Redwoods and Mountains, Fertile Fields and Fragrant
Orchards, Long White Beaches, Fishing, Festivals and Fun for All_
[Illustration: _Party boats on which the land-lubber may embark for
a day of deep-sea fishing are operated from Monterey and Santa
Cruz._]
Also not to be overlooked in Pacific Grove is an excellent Museum of
Natural History. Its collection of Monterey County birds and its
displays of marine life found in nearby waters are exceptionally
complete. In Butterfly Park is another museum, though it is called a
gallery, in which are displayed hundreds upon hundreds of butterflies,
moths and other insects.
If, like most visitors to Monterey, you continue to follow the bay
shore, where miles of wildflowers adorn the bluffs, you will come
eventually to the Seventeen Mile Drive, which runs through a tremendous
private preserve. On this, for most of the way, you travel with the
fantastically blue ocean on one hand and truly marvelous dark green
forest on the other. At times your route runs on low bluffs near the
ocean, and again you are on rocky cliffs high above. Back among the
trees, near the Pebble Beach area where the sports car races are held
every year, you frequently see homes that are almost palaces.
On your way you pass Cypress Point, which is one of only two places in
the world where the Monterey cypress is indigenous, and Midway Point, a
rugged rocky spine jutting into the sea and bearing a single lone and
twisted cypress, probably the most photographed tree in the world. Not
far away is the Ghost Tree, another cypress whose whitened trunk and
limbs seem like the bones and shroud of a fleeing wraith. Then your
route leads past Del Monte Lodge, with its array of fashionable shops,
and on through Pebble Beach, and thence to Carmel.
Carmel is unique, a “village” conceived by artists and now perhaps the
home of more well known writers, painters and other workers in the arts
than any other community in the state. Carmel has no street numbers, no
mail delivery, and you have to get permission from the town council
before you may even cut down a tree on your own property.
[Illustration: _In spring the apple blossoms whiten thousands of
trees and spread their delicate fragrance over many a mile in the
Watsonville area._]
In Carmel the trucks in which garbage is collected are adorned with
baskets of flowers. The street signs bear carved and painted
decorations—a pine cone, a squirrel, a ship under full sail, or
something else associated with the region. The shops are small but
legion, many of them hidden away in courts and arcades which the
non-resident is likely to pass unwittingly. Their stocks are
fabulous—and not all of it expensive, either.
In between are quaint places to lodge, to lunch, to dine or take tea
after the English manner. Of course there are conventional
establishments, too, but somehow everything in Carmel seems to have just
a little different flavor.
The town stands on an oak-and-pine-clad slope with a magnificent beach
fronting on Carmel Bay at its foot. Along the shore is a lovely drive,
on which are homes beyond the dreams of most folk. Back among the trees
are others. The comfortable domiciles built by the original artist
colony still exist, but they are a minority; Carmel has become a place
to which the wealthy, as well as the well-to-do and the merely
comfortable, come to spend their later years.
Carmel has an outdoor theater, a Bach Festival and an art gallery
maintained by an artists’ co-operative. Its Church of the Wayfarer has a
garden containing, it is said, every tree, shrub, herb and flower
mentioned in the Bible. Other gardens, formal and informal, are
everywhere. Once a year a number of the finest are thrown open for
public inspection.
And then there is the Mission San Carlos de Borromeo, where Father Serra
held sway. The present church is not the one he knew; it was not begun
until nine years after his death in 1784. But under its sanctuary floor
he, Padre Crespi, Padre Lasuen and another lie buried. The structure has
many features distinctive from the usual mission architecture, among
them its massive south tower, with outside staircase and Saracenic dome,
and a star window. It is of sandstone and has a vaulted roof as it did
originally but in restoration the roof angle was made less sharp. Some
of the original decoration may be seen in a small chapel to the left of
the entrance. In a side chapel is a magnificent sarcophagus in marble
and bronze, the work of Jo Mora.
A few miles south of the old mission is one of Nature’s
wonderlands—Point Lobos Reserve State Park. Here stands the second
native grove of Monterey Cypress, and here the ocean batters ceaselessly
against spectacular rocky points which rise precipitously to make
fjord-like coves. In these deep, sharp, inlets the blue water boils into
furious bursts of white foam and spray, forming always-changing pictures
of incomparable beauty.
_Lush Valleys of the Salinas and Pajaro Rivers Rich in Pastoral Charm,
Even Richer in Their Vast Yields of Lettuce, Apples, Berries, Livestock_
[Illustration: _Lettuce, famed “green gold” of the Salinas region,
stretches in row after row for miles along the highways through the
valley._]
[Illustration: _Beef cattle fatten on green hills and pasture lands
in southern Monterey County, famed stock-raising area since mission
times._]
Offshore is a group of rocks haunted by both California and Steller sea
lions, an island much used by seafowl and naturally named “Bird Island,”
and a roiling, turbulent channel appropriately called “The Devil’s
Cauldron” which is a favorite spot of the sea otter. These strange
creatures were long thought to have been hunted to extinction but about
30 of them appeared in 1938 off Bixby Creek, 12 miles south of Point
Lobos, and there are now believed to be almost 100 in the group. Some
ardent pursuers of wild life are already asserting that the otter have
now increased to such an extent that the “crop” should be “harvested”—a
policy which could easily result in extinguishing the species.
A mile below Point Lobos is Carmel Highlands, an area of rich estates
and fine homes, some of them set on the very edge of the continent. The
James house, in this area, has been called the most beautiful residence
in the United States. And the gardens hereabout are a thing to marvel
at.
Beyond “the Highlands” runs a real road of romance, a motor highway
carved from the seaward face of the Santa Lucia mountains. Most of the
distance to its junction with other routes at San Luis Obispo there is
nothing between this road and the blue, blue sea but the cliffs. Above
it, on the east, tower the mountains. It is no road for the man in a
hurry, but for one who loves Nature it is glorious.
[Illustration: _South from Carmel, in the trees or on the
cliffs—sometimes almost built out over the ocean—are some of the
most beautiful homes in America._]
This is wildflower country. Within a 20-mile stretch you may see, in
season, wild roses, primroses, California poppies, yellow lupine, wild
mustard spreading over fields like a froth of foamy yellow, great bushes
of blue lupine marching up rocky hillsides, almost cliffs: Queen Anne’s
lace, succulents of many colors, and sometimes succulents which are not
in bloom but whose foliage has turned a rich, dark red; Indian paint
brush—all these abundant, in masses easy to see and recognize as you
roll along. A naturalist could find many more.
The Spaniards would have come by this route if they could, but the
mountains were too rugged, there was no path between sea and cliffs, and
so they were forced inland. That this road was ever constructed was
largely due to the efforts of Dr. John Roberts of Monterey, who used to
ride horseback on calls to remote and isolated ranches up the canyons.
It was almost 20 years in building.
South along this road from Point Lobos, beyond Garrapata Creek and Rocky
Creek and Bixby Creek, past the light house at Point Sur and inland a
few miles, is Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park, a redwood park which is the
entrance to 250,000 acres of wilderness area in the adjacent Los Padres
National Forest. These redwoods are almost the most southerly of all:
the actual southernmost ones are on Mill Creek, some 25 miles farther
along the road.
And so to Watsonville. Watsonville exists because in 1852 one John H.
Watson decided that the location was suitable for a town and, with
another man, forthwith laid out one. Watsonville is strictly business.
Even before Watson’s time, the Amestis, Castros, Vallejos and other
Spanish pioneer families were busily raising grain and potatoes here.
California’s great lettuce industry got its start in the Watsonville
region and today it is a busy center for the raising and processing of
lettuce, berries, beans, brussels sprouts, and many, many apples.
The traveler passing through Watsonville sees only a rather busy main
street, plaza and business section, but only a little way to one side is
an area where quick-freezing plants, ice plants, warehouses and
lettuce-chilling works cover block after block, with switch engines
busily shifting empty cars to be loaded and loaded cars to be made into
trains and headed east.
Some eight miles south of Watsonville is Moss Landing, a port for
vessels of moderate draft, from which the grain crops of the region once
were shipped. Now it is the home of a picturesque fishing fleet and the
scene of one of the largest steam-electric plants in the West. This
giant, which the public may visit by obtaining a permit, produces
771,000 horsepower. Its eight boilers are each as high as a ten-story
building and, the better to withstand any possible earthquake, are
suspended in steel towers more massive than many bridge piers. Operators
in the control room use television to watch the leaping flames inside
the boilers and to supervise change-overs from natural gas to fuel oil
when required. Steam pressure is an incredible—except to engineers—1,405
pounds per square inch in one section of the plant and 1,510 pounds in
another.
_Scenes and Structures on Unique “Path of History” in Monterey Bring
Memories of the Days When California Was Young_
[Illustration: _The first building in California in which a stage
performance was given for an admission fee. Pacific and Scott Sts.,
Monterey._]
[Illustration: _The Casa Amesti, on Monterey’s Path of History.
Built early in Mexican era by Jose Amesti as a wedding gift to his
daughter._]
[Illustration: _The old Customs House at Monterey. Here Commodore
John Drake Sloat, on July 7, 1846, raised the American flag and
claimed for the United States the entire West, all of which was then
known under the name of California._]
Between here and Monterey you may drive for miles between fields laid
out in neat rows of thistly artichoke plants. Castroville calls itself
“The Artichoke Center of the World,” and with reason, for the annual
production from this area is more than 1,300,000 boxes.
_Natural Wonders and the Works of Man Combine to Create a Region of
Tremendous Beauty and Wide Appeal to Students, Vacationers, and the
Motorist Seeking Something New_
[Illustration: _Wildflowers in vast profusion and a galaxy of colors
line the cliffs along the bayshore at picturesque old Pacific
Grove._]
[Illustration: _High rocky spines, spare gnarled trees, an
ever-pounding surf and blue water are typical of shoreline at Point
Lobos State Park._]
[Illustration: _This is Pebble Beach, asserted by many to be the
finest of all golf courses. Finals of the Bing Crosby Open are
played here._]
It is inland, however, in the great valley of the Salinas, that
agriculture really hits its stride and while production in Watsonville’s
Pajaro Valley is tremendous, that which centers in the Salinas area is
even greater.
In the beginning Salinas was a center for livestock raising. Then
overtones of agriculture were added as potatoes began to be raised
thereabout. Later, sugar beets came in and the largest beet sugar
refinery in the United States was built a few miles west of the city.
Today, lettuce is the big item—two to three crops a year, worth more
than $40,000,000.
Production on most of the larger ranches is on virtually an assembly
line basis. Long machines, drawn by tractors, span 18 rows of the ripe
lettuce. On a platform ride the packers, usually eight. Ahead of the
machine walk cutters, one for each row, who cut the crisp green heads.
Behind the machines are other workers who place the heads on a table
before the packers. These packers place the heads in cartons which pass
on to a worker who closes them, and another who staples the closure
tight. The whole work proceeds so rapidly that a special worker is
required merely to unfold cartons.
Trucks, each of which holds exactly half a carload, follow the picking
machine and as the pallets on each truck are piled to the proper height
with cartons of lettuce, that truck departs for a cooling plant where,
under intense vacuum, the lettuce is cooled from the temperature of the
hot field to a point just above freezing in a matter of only 18 to 20
minutes. Then it goes into pre-iced refrigerator cars, with the cartons
still on the original pallets, and presently is on its way to market.
The old methods, by which lettuce was hauled to packing sheds for
trimming, packing and icing, are now all but superseded and firms with
tremendous investments in ice plants are wondering what to do with them,
for when it was necessary to ice each crate of lettuce Salinas produced
more ice than New York City.
Besides the lettuce which has given it the name “Salad Bowl of the
World,” the Salinas Valley also produces more than $6,000,000 worth of
dry beans, $12,000,000 worth of carrots, $5,500,000 worth of celery and
quantities of truck crops every year. The sugar beet crop runs to almost
$7,000,000 a year.
In spite of its agricultural importance, however, Salinas still thinks
of itself in terms of the old stock-raising days. The annual Salinas
California Rodeo was started in 1911 to perpetuate the sports and
traditions of the Old West. Membership on the 50-man board which
controls this four-day event is a coveted honor. In this fast, dramatic,
colorful spectacle, competition is of world championship caliber, prizes
amount to approximately $50,000 and every effort is made to see that the
stock is capable of bringing out the best in each competitor. “Salinas,”
said one rodeo rider, “is where they separate the men from the boys.”
Yet, while agriculture and stock raising overshadow them, this region,
too, has its recreation features. Paraiso Hot Springs and Tassajara Hot
Springs are well known resorts. The padres and, before them, the
Indians, made much use of the Paraiso Springs.
[Illustration: _Mission San Carlos de Borromeo, at Carmel, is often
called the most beautiful of all the missions. Its Saracenic tower
is distinctive._]
Like all the other sections traversed by the route of the padres, the
Salinas Valley had its missions—Mission de Nuestra Senora de la Soledad,
near the town of Soledad, and Mission San Antonio de Padua, near Jolon.
Both fell completely into ruins but now are being restored. Only a
beginning has been made at Soledad, but San Antonio has been largely
rebuilt by the Franciscan Fathers and is in use as a training school for
young brothers. It is a “working” mission—that is, not only a place for
worship but a place where industry is carried on, as it used to be at
the original mission, shoemaking, carpentry, book binding, the making of
adobe brick and tile for the rebuilding of the two wings which are still
to be reconstructed, and all the maintenance work.
In addition to agriculture, food processing, and the activities
dependent upon the sight-seers and pleasure-seekers, the economy of this
region also derives considerable support from industry. It digs and
processes sand for making glass and for other purposes. Salt and
refractories are manufactured. Lumbering continues on privately-owned
lands in the Santa Cruz mountains, with processing at Santa Cruz. Near
Santa Cruz is one of the largest cement production plants in America, if
not the world.
There are small-scale textile operations and a saddle leather plant in
Santa Cruz, which city is also intensely proud of its new chewing gum
plant. There are several seed farms producing flower seeds—a pretty
sight in summer—and more producing field crop seed. There are busy
commercial fishing fleets.
Stock-raising, with King City as an important center, brings the region
more than $3,500,000 every year and dairying almost as much again.
Oil was discovered near San Ardo about eight years ago and production
from this field, which has 480 active wells, holds steady at 30,000
barrels a day.
_Mountains Marching to the Sea, Red Tiles Amid the Green of Cypress,
White Clouds, Bare Cliffs and Crashing Surf—These Spell Enchantment_
[Illustration: _Highway One crosses this graceful span, whose arch
rises 260 feet above Bixby Creek, on its way southward beside the
ocean._]
[Illustration: _The Monterey Peninsula’s Seventeen Mile Drive is
world-known for its beauty and variety. Above, a distant glimpse of
Monterey._]
Also important economically are the many military installations. The
vast Hunter Liggett Military Reservation has headquarters near Jolon. At
Fort Ord, a few miles north of Monterey, 30,000 to 35,000 military
personnel and about 2,000 civilian employees are on duty. The once-famed
Del Monte Hotel at Monterey has become a postgraduate school for naval
engineering officers, with a faculty and student body totalling about
2,000. The Presidio of Monterey, established so long ago by Portola, is
now an army school where some 400 specialists instruct about 2,000
students in one or another of 26 languages.
Of late years the construction industry has been very important, for
cities all through Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties are growing so
rapidly they are fairly bursting at the seams. At Salinas, residential
development has extended far north of the Rodeo Grounds, which once were
out in the country. Outside the city limits to the east is another
development, called Alisal, almost equal in size to the residential area
of Salinas itself. And there are several smaller subdivisions. At
Monterey new subdivisions and communities, some very beautiful, extend
far to the north and many fine old trees are being taken from properties
along the Carmel Road to make room for more homes. Carmel has overflowed
into Carmel Valley. Santa Cruz is adding residential construction at a
rate of about $3,000,000 annually. Watsonville has grown more than 20
per cent since 1950.
Busy as it may be, however, it is all a friendly, hospitable country.
Nowhere will you find people too hurried to bid you welcome and to do
what they can to make your stay enjoyable.
—Written for Motorland by D. R. Lane.
[Illustration: _Along the coastline south of Carmel, the highway is
literally hewn from the cliffs. “Island” above is really Point Sur,
made famous by Robinson Jeffers in his “The Women of Point Sur.”_]