City of Salinas history

Prior to this failure, however, a settlement known as "Hilltown" developed (near the intersection of the Monterey Highway and Salinas River), and Hill found himself in 1854 to be the first Postmaster for the Salinas area.

Leese, a wealthy merchant with dealings in both San Francisco and Monterey, sold some 80 acres to Elias Howe, often credited as the real founder of Salinas, in 1856.

At the site of "the great bend in the slough," Howe built the famed Halfway House which was purchased by Alberto Trescony in 1857.

In 1864, Trescony's small hotel, known as the American Hotel, became the site of the Post Office which was moved to "Trescony's" from Hilltown.

In 1867, Trescony sold the property to Alanson Riker, and under his direction the plans for the town were quickly laid out.

Salinas, the brash town that eclipsed the earlier settlement of Natividad by luring in the railroad, incorporating, and winning the right to be the county seat, all in the 1870’s, was still growing eighty years later.

In 1874, a group of local businessmen including Carr, Abbott, Vanderhurst and Jacks constructed the first narrow gauge railroad in California to compete with the high freight rates of the Southern Pacific.

As early as 1877, experiments in various forms of irrigation had taken place in Monterey County.

In the first Monterey County History, published in 1882, the editors said of Salinas City:

By 1885, Salinas had the largest flour mill in the state south of San Francisco, producing 500 barrels of "drifted snow" a day.

A Board of Trade was established in 1887 to pursue the commercial upbuilding of the city.

Grover Cleveland’s first termThe surplus and the tariffThe public domainThe Interstate Commerce ActThe election of 1888

Speculation was high and despite the national economic recession of 1893, investment and growth were accelerated in Salinas.

In 1896, the recently formed cavalry troop "C" of the California National Guard, moved into its newly completed armory at the corner of West Alisal and Salinas Streets and began its distinguished career as a military unit and important Salinas social institution.

Spreckels was able to purchase large acreages cheap and by 1898 enough farmers were willing to change from cereal crops to beets to make Spreckels' promised plant a reality.

In 1899 the plant was finally completed and put into operation for the beginning of a new century.

1900 saw the opening of the new Salinas High School across from the current West Alisal Street Post Office.

In 1901, the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad finally reached Los Angeles about the same time the first automobiles were appearing in Salinas along El Camino Real.

In 1905, the Salinas Japanese Association was formed to bring order and cohesion to the immigrant community.

Those not reinforced with steel frames suffered considerably in 1906 when the same earthquake that hit San Francisco damaged or destroyed every commercial building along Main Street in Salinas.

They introduced celery and broccoli as crops as well as growing the first strawberries in the Salinas Valley out on Romie Lane in 1911.

Beginning in 1915 with the construction of Highway 101 through the city, Salinas soon had fully paved streets.

After the War's end, in 1919, Salinas City, through the adoption of a "freeholders charter" officially became the City of Salinas.

Architect Ralph Wycoff completed the new Spanish Revival style Salinas Union High School on South Main Street in 1921 to accommodate the growing population, a portion of the high school's south wing was dedicated to the newly established Salinas Junior College.

In 1924 Salinas had the highest per capita income of any city in the United States.

In 1925 the Salinas Buddhist Church was founded on California Street where it remains today.

By 1928, the city had its first airport.

By 1930 the Salinas population reached 10,263, and would continue to grow given the area’s many advantages.

Salinas made its first annexation to the original city in 1933, a 52 - acre addition to the south side along Romie Lane.

Labor strife, as noted characterized a part of the decade in 1934 when Filipino workers organized as one of California's first farm labor unions, the Filipino Labor Supply Association and clashed with management in a major strike.

Residences and apartment complexes around town, continued this expression and the Monterey County Building (1936) at the corner of West Alisal and Church Street may be one of the best Depression Moderne buildings in the state.

While out in the Alisal the East Salinas Improvement Club organized with sixty members in 1938.

In the winter of 1940, the airstrip became a United States Army Air Corps Training Base.

The first permanent USO building in the United States was built on Lincoln Street in 1941 and is used today as the city recreation center.

While meeting the war effort, the city projected plans for post war development in a three point program prepared in 1943, designated for state and federal funding.

Other Salinas milestones following the armistice were: closure of the Salinas Army Air Base and return of the airport to the city; repair and return of the Salinas Garrison to the Rodeo Grounds in time for the 1947 Rodeo, though without Sgt.

In 1948 Salinas Junior College was officially named Hartnell College, and the Salinas Californian moved to its new building on West Alisal Street.

In 1949 the Alisal area voted “no” on annexation to Salinas, while the Airport and Rodeo tracts in the north part of town launched another annexation drive.

Jobs also came to the area through the efforts of the Monterey County Industrial Development, Inc., better known as the MCID, which received its charter of incorporation from the State of California on December 10, 1951.

In 1952 the North Salinas “book station” opened at the firehouse on Laurel Drive.

Kuhlman Electric opened in 1955.

Universal Match Corporation in Prunedale and Wilder Manufacturing both opened in 1957.

Streater Industries, Growers Frozen Food and J.M. Smucker all opened in 1958.

The first compilation of Standard Rate and Data Service for the twelve month period ending in July of 1959 showed that Salinas retail merchants exceeded gross business totals of the previous year by 11.8 percent, a remarkable increase.

North Salinas High School opened for classes in January 1960 and was dedicated in April that same year.

In 1963 when the Alisal District voted to become East Salinas, Salinas’ population nearly doubled overnight to about 50,000.

Notre Dame opened in 1964.

Alisal High School opened in 1965 with freshmen, sophomore and junior classes.

Just a few years before his death, John Steinbeck’s syndicated dispatches from his travels in Vietnam and Southeast Asia appeared in the Salinas Californian . Then on December 20, 1968 following a period of ill health, John Steinbeck died in New York City.

Without the protection provided by the reservoirs rancher Jim Bardin estimated that about six feet of water would have flooded the courthouse on Alisal Street during a “500-Year Flood” in early 1969.

On Christmas Eve 1970 Chavez was released pending the outcome of an appeal [ibid].

In January of 1973, the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was formed.

In April 1974, the Salinas City Council agreed to a $1 million investment in municipal funds for the revitalization of the city’s deteriorating downtown core.

Salinas Mayor Henry Hibino officially opened Hebbron Heights Park on June 1, 1975.

Despite talk of closing Salinas libraries, the new East Salinas Santa Lucia Library, later renamed for Cesar Chavez, finally opened in October of 1978.

Despite the controversies surrounding the cleanup, the Firestone site was purchased in the mid 1980’s by businessmen Carini and John Panattoni who partitioned the sprawling space into 20,000 square feet of storage blocks that were then leased to manufacturers and warehouse interests.

In 1982 the Salinas Californian photographed Debra Winger, who was a star in Cannery Row and in town for the premier of that film, kissing the Steinbeck statue on the library lawn.

Nonetheless in February 1987, based on a scoring process that rates current or potential health impact, the site was added to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List, making it a Superfund site.

In 1988, Salinas voters adopted district elections of city council members by a thin margin of 103 votes.

In June 1992, positive cleanup levels were achieved in all hydrological zones.

The closure of Fort Ord in 1994 was a cause for concern, but the opening of California State University, Monterey Bay on that site the same year was cause for celebration.

Everett Alvarez High School opened in Northeast Salinas in August of 1995.

Anna Caballero became Salinas’ first female and first Latina Mayor in 1998.

In 2005 the Maya Cinemas opened in the Oldtown area on Main Street near the National Steinbeck Center.

However, in 2006 both Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System and Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula agreed to chip in a collective $8 million over two years to keep Natividad afloat, in exchange for a say in how to run the medical center.