Monterey is a city on Monterey Bay, located about 100 km south of San Francisco in the American state of California. The coastal city of Monterey impresses with its beautiful location by the sea. A large number of historical buildings (Monterey State Historic Park) bear witness to the time when the province of California was the capital. When sardines were still caught in the waters off town, Cannery Row was an industrial street with fish factories. John Steinbeck memorialized the people of that time with his novel The Road of the Oil Cannery. Today Cannery Row is practically a shopping mall. Fish are still there in one of the largest sea aquariums in the United States.
By train
AMTRAK's Coast Starlight operates a daily service from
Seattle to Los Angeles via Oakland, stopping in Salinas. AMTRAK offers a
shuttle bus (approximately a half-hour drive) to Monterey that serves a
few hotels in town.
In the street
Monterey is on State Highway
1, which is comparatively well developed here. The city is also 25 miles
from Highway 101, which runs north-south from San Francisco to Los
Angeles. If the journey is the reward, a drive along the old, winding
Highway 1 coast road from the north or south makes up for it with
fantastic impressions. Otherwise the 101 is the faster alternative.
Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the well-known works Treasure
Island and The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, stayed in
Monterey in 1879. The city is quoted in his poetry collection A Child's
Garden of Verses. There is a Stevenson home with a beautiful garden in
Monterey. Monterey serves as the setting for several of John Steinbeck's
novels, including Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945).
The Monterey Pop Festival took place in the Monterey County Fairgrounds
in 1967, one of the most important concerts in rock music history (as a
film: Monterey Pop, director D. A. Pennebaker). The Monterey Jazz
Festival has been held since 1958.
Monterey is home to the
Monterey Peninsula College (1947), the Naval Postgraduate School (1947),
an officers' school that was also attended by numerous American
astronauts, the Defense Language Institute, a language school for the
military, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies ( 1955).
A world-famous facility is the Monterey Bay Aquarium, located at the
western end of Cannery Row.
The 17-Mile Drive, a famous tourist
route, begins on the outskirts of Monterey.
The award-winning
miniseries Big Little Lies takes place in and around Monterey. The city
and its surroundings were prominently shown.
Long before the arrival of Europeans, the area now known as Monterey
was inhabited by the Rumsen hunter-gatherers, one of the seven Ohlone
peoples of the California coast. Researchers have found a number of
shell middens in the area and , based on archaeological evidence,
concluded that the Ohlone's primary marine food consisted of mussels and
abalone. Several garbage dumps have been located along about 19
kilometers of rocky coastline on the Monterey Peninsula.
In 1602
Sebastián Vizcaíno recorded the name "Bahía de Monterrey" in his log.
Vizcaíno marched on foot through the south of the bay and described a
large natural port excellent for anchoring or anchoring the ships of the
Manila Galleon. Vizcaíno also pointed out the existence of a cape or
coastal point covered by an important mountain or pine forest (called on
current English maps with the hybrid name of "Point Pinos", which
corresponds to the northern end of the Monterrey Peninsula).
In
1769 the first exploration by land (from Mexico City) to Alta California
was commanded by Gaspar de Portolá (see Portolá Expedition), marching on
horseback from San Diego, trying to sight the port that Vizcaíno had
baptized as " Puerto de Monterrey" or Monte Rey (later in homage to the
Spanish monarchs called San Carlos del Monte Rey) for 167 years before.
For some reason this exploration failed to recognize this plaza when it
passed through its vicinity on October 1, 1769; The Spanish land party
advanced north until it discovered San Francisco Bay (which for a long
time was called Bodega Bay) and then returned to the southeast. On the
return trip, they camped near one of Monterrey's lagoons on November 27,
still not convinced that they had found the place Vizcaíno had
described.
The Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí notes in his diary:
"We stopped within sight of the point of Pinos (recognized, as said, at
the beginning of October) and camped near a small lagoon that has muddy
water, but abounds in grasses." and firewood".
Founded on June 3,
1770 with the name of El Presidio Real de San Carlos de Monterrey. The
Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo also dates from this period. Monterrey
was the first capital of the New Spain province of Las Californias, to
the detriment of Loreto, from 1777 to 1849, which is why it is
considered the first capital of the state of California.
On
November 24, 1817, the French privateer Hipólito Bouchard in the service
of Argentina landed with 200 men in a cove hidden by the heights, one
league from the Monterrey prison. The resistance of the fort was weak
and after an hour of combat the Argentine flag was raised. The
Argentines took the city for six days, during which they seized the
cattle, burned the fort, the artillery barracks, the governor's
residence and the Spanish houses, along with their orchards and gardens.
Retiring on November 29.
It came into the power of the First
Mexican Empire on November 10, 1822, when the last Spanish governor
Pablo Vicente de Solá handed it over.
Between October 19 and 20,
1842, it was occupied by US Navy troops, who believed that a war with
Mexico had started, withdrawing after the request of Governor Manuel
Micheltorena.
In the American Intervention in Mexico, the city
was occupied by the US on July 7, 1846 during the Battle of Monterrey.
By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, Alta California became part
of the United States, Monterrey ceased to be a Mexican city. In 1850 it
was also replaced as the capital of California by Sacramento.
Monterey was a major fishing and whaling port in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries. Of particular importance was the catch of
sardines, whose processing plants were mainly found along Cannery Row.
In the middle of the 20th century, fishing collapsed almost completely
as a result of overfishing. Today, off the coast of Monterey, the
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is the largest marine sanctuary
in the United States.
Today, Monterey's main source of income is
tourism.
As of the 2010 census, Monterey had a population of 27,810. The
population density was 912.7/km². 78.3% of the population was white and
2.8% was African American. 3817 people were Hispanic. The smallest
population group was that of the Indians with 149 people.
In 2010
there were 12,184 households, of which 2,475 had children under the age
of 18. 4,690 (38.5%) households were married couples, 7.4% of the
households had a female single parent, 3% had a male single parent.
4,778 households (39.2%) were single households and 1,432 households had
people aged 65 years or older. The mean age was 36.9 years. In 2010,
there were 101.2 males for every 100 females.
The vacancy rate
was 2%, and that of rents was 6.5%.
Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the well-known works Treasure
Island and The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was in Monterey
in 1879. The town is quoted in his book of poetry, A Child's Garden of
Verses. There is a Stevenson house with a beautiful yard in Monterey.
Monterey is the setting for several of John Steinbeck's novels,
including Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945).
The 1967
Monterey County Fairground hosted the Monterey Pop Festival, one of the
most important concerts in rock music history (on film: Monterey Pop,
director DA Pennebaker). The Monterey Jazz Festival has been held since
1958.
Monterey is the site of the Monterey Peninsula College
(1947), the Naval Postgraduate School (1947), an officers' school that
was also attended by many American astronauts, the Defense Language
Institute, a language school for the military, and the Monterey
Institute of International Studies ( 1955).
A world-renowned
facility is the Monterey Bay Aquarium, located at the west end of
Cannery Row.
17-Mile Drive, a famous tourist street, begins on
the outskirts of Monterey.