Secret Monterey
A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure
Story by David A. Laws
Did Sir Francis Drake claim Monterey for Queen Elizabeth? What is a flagpole skater? Why did the new nation of Argentina attack the port of Monterey? How do you find the Dark Watchers?
You can find the answers to these and eighty other questions in Secret Monterey: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure, published by Reedy Press in April 2022.
Secret Monterey reveals little-known stories behind popular attractions in “California’s greatest and most accessible scenic playground” and numerous other local spots replete with mystery and intrigue.
Following are several examples of stories that readers have noted as particularly surprising or interesting.
Where Zombie Worms Dine on Whale Bones
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) at Moss Landing is just a mile or so from one of the deepest submarine canyons off the coast of North America. Reaching over 16,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, the height of the Monterey Submarine Canyon’s vertical walls rival those of the Grand Canyon. The ability to penetrate these depths so close to land gives unprecedented access to study the myriad and often bizarre-looking creatures of the deep sea.
Using remotely operated submarine vehicles (ROVs), in 2004, MBARI researchers discovered a new tubeworm species. They called them “zombie worms” for their diet of dead whale bones and named the species Osedax, Latin for bone devourer. First encountered a mile below the surface, Osedax has no eyes, mouth, or stomach. Instead, they employ roots to burrow into nutrient-rich bones scattered in whale boneyards across the ocean floor.
MBARI’s ocean research vessels can sometimes be seen docked opposite the institute’s offices in Moss Landing Harbor. Painted bright yellow, ROV Doc Ricketts can dive to more than 13,000 feet. A twin-hull support vessel for the ROV, the R/V Western Flyer, has a center well whose floor opens to launch from Doc Ricketts within the ship directly into the water below. Both vessel names honor philosopher and biologist Edward F. Ricketts for his pioneering work on marine ecology and his voyage on the fishing boat Western Flyer, as told by John Steinbeck in The Log from the Sea of Cortez. Steinbeck based the character of “Doc” in the novel Cannery Row on the personality of Ricketts, although he never referred to him in print as “Doc Ricketts.”
Under The Flags of Four Colonial Powers
Monterey’s human story began thousands of years ago when indigenous people arrived to harvest the peninsula’s bountiful natural resources. Their way of life changed forever after maritime explorer Sebastián Vizcaino claimed the land for Spain in 1602. Vizcaino’s arrival began a succession of occupations by colonial powers making Monterey the only place in North America to have lived under the flags of four nations.
Don Gaspar de Portola and Father Junipero Serra arrived in 1770 to establish a permanent Spanish presence in Monterey. Privateer Hippolyte Bouchard sailed into the bay in 1818 to claim the land for Argentina. Unable to find support for his cause, he burned the presidio and departed empty-handed. The territory declared allegiance to Mexico in 1822 on that nation’s independence from Spain. Concerned by threats of annexation by British forces, US Navy Commodore John Sloat seized control from Mexico in 1846.
You can read this convoluted history engraved on a marble slab near the entrance to Fisherman’s Wharf under the title Monterey Harbor. For those who prefer to absorb their history visually, a 45-foot by 11-foot glazed-tile mosaic, The Monterey Mural by Guillermo Wagner Granizo, tells the same story in colorful cartoon-style vignettes, covering the period from Rumsen village communities to bustling Cannery Row. The mosaic is mounted opposite 336 Pacific Street on the rear wall of the Monterey Conference Center.
And Now There Are Two
During his early career at Disney, cartoonist Hank Ketchum worked on many imaginary characters, including Bambi, Donald Duck, and Pinocchio. But he drew his most beloved creation, Dennis the Menace, from real-life. Ketchum’s wife Alice burst into his Carmel studio one afternoon in 1950. She shouted, “Your son is a menace!” Instead of napping, four-year-old Dennis had wrecked his bedroom. In a classic example of turning lemons into lemonade, Ketchum started drawing. A freckle-faced legend was born. Within a couple of years, newspapers carried the adventures of the lovable imp to an estimated 30 million readers worldwide.
In 1988, Ketchum commissioned Academy Award-winning animator Wah Ming Chang to create a bronze statue of Dennis the Menace for installation at the entrance to the children’s playground in Monterey’s El Estero Park. The 3-foot-tall, 200-pound Dennis joined attractions that included a huge, black 1924 steam locomotive, a climbing wall, suspension bridge, slides, swings, and other imaginative play structures.
In 2006, Dennis disappeared. City officials offered a $5,000 reward for the statue’s return. After no response, they installed a replacement. Ten years later, Dennis turned up at a scrapyard in Orlando, Florida. The scrapyard owner’s daughter-in-law recognized the cartoon figure. Her Internet search revealed that the statue had been stolen. The city honored the reward, and Dennis came home to Monterey. After minor restoration work, the original Dennis now stands outside the City Recreation Administrative Offices at the Vasquez Adobe, 546 Dutra Street. The perpetrators are still at large.
Flagpole Skater Breaks Record
In the 1920s, Holman’s Department Store on Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove was the largest independently operated retail establishment between San Francisco and Los Angeles. As a publicity stunt, the owner hired a Mr. X to roller skate on a tiny platform mounted on top of his flagpole high above the busy street. Mr. X spun around and around for 51 hours to break his own record. A silent newsreel clip of his feat headlined “Flagpole Skater starts newest silly season sport!” appeared on cinema screens nationwide. You can view his antics today on a YouTube video.
In the novel Cannery Row, John Steinbeck recounted the true story of “The Mysterious Mr. X.” Spectators who crowded the street below were intrigued to know, “How does he go to the bathroom?” Steinbeck answered their question through a character in the novel who claimed: “He’s got a can up there.”
Where Sir Francis Drake Claimed Monterey for the Queen
With the Golden Hind overloaded with looted Spanish treasure, in June 1579, privateer (or pirate, depending on your national allegiance), Sir Francis Drake sought a harbor on the California coast to repair his vessel for the long voyage back to England. Most historians agree that he anchored at Drakes Bay near Point Reyes for six weeks. The chaplain’s diary states that before leaving to complete his circumnavigation of the globe, Drake left a metal plate engraved with a declaration claiming the land for England. In 1936, a brass plaque engraved with a similar text was unearthed in Marin County. However, experts claimed it to be a hoax.
In a similar find, a Pebble Beach resident found a barnacle-encrusted glass bottle in the sand at Moss Beach near today’s Inn at Spanish Bay. When he opened the bottle in 1949, he extracted an Elizabethan sixpence coin and a tightly rolled lead scroll inscribed with a similar proclamation to the Marin plaque. The Monterey Peninsula Herald newspaper proclaimed: “Discovery Here of Drake Scroll May Change Pacific History.”
Although all the materials tested as appropriate to the date on the scroll, because of the Marin hoax, most authorities dismissed this local find as another counterfeit. Unfortunately, the bottle and contents vanished. The owner claimed that burglars stole them from his home. Local history buffs like to believe they will turn up and be validated one day.
The Dark Watchers
For centuries, residents and visitors to the remote Ventana Wilderness area of Big Sur have reported sightings of tall, shadowy beings silhouetted on ridgetops. Others described eerie feelings of an elusive presence deep in redwood-lined canyons. Early Spanish settlers called them Los Vigilantes Oscuros (The Dark Watchers). In his poem “Such Counsels You Gave to Me,” Poet Robinson Jeffers wrote: “They come from behind ridges to watch. He was not surprised when the figure turning toward him in the quiet twilight showed his own face. Then it melted and merged into the shadows beyond it.”
John Steinbeck’s mother, Olive Hamilton, told of leaving gifts of fruit or flowers for the watchers on her way to teach school in the area. He incorporated her tales of beings who roamed the hills into Flight, one of his most widely anthologized short stories. Pepe Torres, a youth fleeing pursuers in the mountains, catches a glimpse of a mysterious black figure, “but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers. No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show interest in them.”
Explanations for the phenomena range from hallucinations induced by exhaustion or isolation to distant views of lone trees on ridgetops of the Santa Lucia Mountains. Steinbeck’s son Thom preferred the mystical view. In his book In Search of the Dark Watchers, he posed the question, “How does one find these creatures? And the answer has always been the same; you don’t find them, they find you.”
Hat In Three Stages of Landing
Monumental Pop Art sculpture by noted artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen is an unexpected find in Salinas. Installed in Sherwood Park in 1982, Hat in Three Stages of Landing comprises three western-style hats skidding to the ground as if tossed from the adjacent rodeo arena stands. Stylized with high crowns and downturned brims, the hats represent the diverse cultures of a community that favors this form of headwear for work and recreation.
Oldenburg explained how they came up with the hat idea: “Salinas, where so many work out of doors, hats are essential. Visiting a local hat store we saw a wide range of headgear, from farmers’ to ranchers’ to ladies’ garden hats.” Coosje had already started a direction of thinking by noting down on her arrival: ‘Something blowing in the wind… or something thrown … or something floating.’ The subject of a hat fit well into this approach.” Fabricated of steel and aluminum painted with bright yellow polyurethane enamel, each of the three hats is 18 feet long and 9.5 feet high. They stand equidistant from one another, 80 feet apart, each at a different height, with the lowest almost touching the ground.
Secret Monterey: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure, published by Reedy Press in 2022, is available online and in independent bookstores across the county, including:
Bookworks, Pacific Grove
Downtown Book and Sound, Salinas
River House Books, Carmel-by-the-Sea
The Custom House Store, Monterey
ISBN-10 : 1681063654 ISBN-13 : 978–1681063652
Events
Downtown Book and Sound, Salinas, Friday, May 13, 2022
Pacific Grove Public Library, Friday, August 5, 2022
River House Books, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Sunday, August 7, 2022
Pacific Grove Heritage Society, Sunday, October 2, 2022
Carmel Foundation, Wednesday, November 8, 2022
OLLI at CSUMB, Wednesday, December 7, 2022
