Historic Cannery Row

The real neighborhood of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.
Real people and places in the neighborhood of Monterey's old Ocean View Avenue inspired fictional characters and establishments in the mind of John Steinbeck. Published in 1945, his novel Cannery Row vividly captured the essence of life during the cannery era of the 1930s and 1940s.

Steinbeck's longtime friend, biologist Ed Ricketts, is immortalized in the character Doc in Cannery Row and its sequel Sweet Thursday. Doc's Western Biological Laboratory was based on Ed Ricketts's real lab, Pacific Biological Laboratories located today at 800 Cannery Row.

The Wing Chong Market at 835 Cannery Row was owned by Chinese entrepreneur Won Yee, whom Steinbeck cast as the grocer Lee Chong in the novel. The La Ida Cafe, located at 851 Cannery Row, was actually a brothel in the cannery days, as was the Bear Flag Restaurant, operated by Flora Woods, whom Steinbeck named Dora Flood. The site of the old Bear Flag is now Mackerel Jack's Trading Company at 799 Cannery Row.

In 1958, long after the publication of Cannery Row, the city of Monterey renamed Ocean View Avenue after the famous novel, forever tying the street to the novel's creator, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck.

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Show me all markers in:  Monterey, CA  |  Monterey County  |  93940  |  California  |  United States of America

The Filipino Community
The Japanese Community
Jone Quock Mui
The Spanish Community
A Day in the Canneries
One Man, Two Worlds
The Real "Docs"
The Del Mar Canning Company, 1927-1947
Ed Ricketts's Backyard
La Ida Café

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