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Human habitation of the Monterey Peninsula dates back some 3,500 years. The Ohlones to the north and the Chumash to the south led a peaceful, subsistence-based existence, enjoying the area's temperate climate and abundant resources. Spain laid claim to the entire California coast in 1542; it was explorer Sebastian Vizcaino who discovered Monterey Bay 60 years later. The Viceroy of Mexico Gaspar de Zuniga y Acevedo named the area after him and was enthusiastic about its further exploration. He was replaced, however, in 1603. Vizcaino was subsequently fired, and the King's orders for him to return to Monterey with colonists were quietly shelved. It was not for another 168 years that Gaspar de Portola, the Spanish governor of Baja California, established the first mission (under the direction of Father Junipero Serra) and presidio in Monterey. (So inaccurate were Vizcaino's descriptions of the Bay's features, that it took Portola two expeditions to finally locate it.)
Portola established the Carmel Mission (under the direction of Father Junipero Serra) and presidio (still standing) in Monterey. In 1775, Monterey was made the Capital of Alta California and it remained so through Spanish, Mexican and independent California rule until American statehood took effect in 1850. Spanish settlement and mission life doomed Ohlone and Chumas culture.
Huge land grants, or ranchos, were sold to Spanish settlers, or Californios. When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, the vast holdings of the Catholic Church were broken up and sold off at generous rates as further ranchos. Many of the ranchos, particularly those along the Central Coast, survive today as ranches, farms, state and federal parkland, and the occasional golf course. The period of Mexican rule of California was short-lived, however. The steady stream of American immigration from the east became an unruly torrent once the Mexican Revolution broke the Spanish monopoly on California trade. John C. Fremont's Bear Flag Revolt of 1846 ushered in the 21-day history of the Bear Republic.
When Nevada's Comstock silver boom of the mid-19th century fuelled ever-greater expansion in the San Francisco economy, the peninsula’s seemingly inexhaustible resources stood ready. The area's attractions remained largely agricultural, however, but for coastal resorts and retreats that sprung up here and there along the Central Coast. The most extreme example of Central Coast resort building is, of course, Fred Swanton's Brighton-style casino up the road in Santa Cruz, where the famous roller coaster continues to do its thing.
It was the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s that brought a new wave of immigration to the Monterey Peninsula. "Okies" from the drought-stricken South and Midwest came by the tens of thousands to pick lettuce and other crops and to work in the sardine canneries. Their travails are part of the pre-war picture glimpsed in Cannery Row, Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Tortilla Flat, and other John Steinbeck classics.
Steinbeck was hardly the only cultural figure attracted by the beauty, silence and seclusion of the Central Coast. A century before, Richard Henry Dana and Robert Lewis Stevenson (who patterned the coastline of Treasure Island after those of Carmel Bay and Point Lobos) had settled there. Jack London, Isadora Duncan, Henry Miller, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Jack Kerouac all lived in the area at various times. Something in the fog air of the coast has had an attraction for spiritualists and self-development movements, as well. Theosophical Society founder Madame Blavatsky was followed, in later years, by the Esalen Institute, the Tassajara Zen Center, hippies, New Ageists, and many others centered in Big Sur to the south of Carmel.
The city of Carmel proper was established in 1904 as an artist’s colony. At the time, the area was well off the beaten path and the seclusion, as well as the scenic land- and seascapes were deemed ideal by the early colonists. Through the years and the onslaught of tourists, Carmel has maintained its rustic quality, successfully keeping both street addresses and chain stores from within its city limits. It has also proven a refuge, not only for artists who work in oils and bronze, but also for the celluloid variety. The former Hollywood denizens who now call Carmel home include Kim Novak, Doris Day and Clint Eastwood, who served as the town’s mayor in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Today, tourists sometimes outnumber locals on the quaint streets lined with galleries and upscale shops. Some are looking for a restful break from their workaday lives in an idyllic setting; some are looking for the world-class golf and dining to be found here. Few leave less than enchanted with what they have found.
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