Monterey Boat Works
Two boat building operations were established on the property where once was located the Chinese Fishing Village. Each of the operations, the Monterey Boat Works and Siino (pronounced Seeno) Boat Works, constructed buildings to support their business efforts. These structures later became part of Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, the Monterey Boat Works building and the Walter K. Fisher Laboratory building, respectively.
MONTEREY BOAT WORKS BUILDING
The following paragraphs discuss the history of the Monterey Boat Works building, when and why it was erected, and how it was used.
In 1916, Horace Cochran and Ford Pearson, local residents of the Monterey peninsula, established the boat yard and boat building business, "Monterey Boat Works", on the property where was once located a portion of the Point Alones Chinese fishing village. The Monterey Boat Works operation consisted of a large boat yard and a wooden barn like structure.1 This barn like structure that stands today as Hopkins Marine Station’s Monterey Boat Works building. Over the next fifty years, within this single structure, were built hundreds of hand crafted wooden boats that supported the fishing efforts of Monterey Bay and beyond.2
In 1919, the Monterey Boat Works was purchased by Gus Smith, who managed the boatyard for the next twenty years. Smith earned a reputation as a master boat builder, as not one of his boats was ever known to have sank. He ran the business until his death.3
In 1921, an opportunity arose to purchase land adjacent to the laboratory and extend the property line of the Hopkins Marine Station. By acquiring the additional 2.587 acres, at a total cost of $3,007.20, the new location was protected from the intrusion of business enterprises that might impede future development of the seaside laboratory.4, 5 In 1923, three and a half additional acres were purchased, the Marine Station was now a total of almost eleven acres in size.6
In 1925 the Siino (pronounced Seeno) Boat Works was built on the subject property. Owned by master shipwright Angelo Siino, former manager for Monterey Boat Works, the new business focused on boat repair but would earn its sterling reputation for producing strong workboats, in addition to fish hoppers used to catch sardines. Siino built all of his boats without blueprints and hand-picked the wood he used—Douglas Fir, Philippine mahogany and Indiana bending oak—from San Francisco lumberyards.
In 1939, Angelo Siino bought the neighboring business from the estate of Gus Smith and transferred operations into the Monterey Boat Works building. The original Siino Boat Works building, located near the Hovden Cannery, then began to be used primarily for the storage of materials.7
During his first year of ownership, Siino extended the rail system and expanded the yards capacity for boat storage. The weekly column Along the Waterfront by Albert Campbell that appeared in the Herald on December 29, 1939 mentions this expansion. “Angelo has been building extensions to the “railroad” about the yard and putting in new “parking lot” tracks in the boat storage spaces…His main line is nearly down to the eastern end of the yard. A few more side tracks will finish the job. Also as usual for this time of year the yard is practically full of boats for winter storage. Many are from Santa Cruz, a few are pleasure boats of local ownership, and there are always plenty of local fishing boats up for repair.”8
The Siino family operated the Monterey Boat Works for the next thirty years. In 1957, Angelo Siino’s two sons, Ray and Frank, took over the ownership and management of the Monterey Boat Works. During their many years as master craftsmen, they built many of the boats used by local commercial abalone divers and fishermen.9
For more than fifty years the Monterey Boat Works building served as the headquarters of the Siino's family thriving boat works operation. In 1967, the Monterey Boat Works closed, when owner Ray Siino became ill. Stanford University also purchased the nearby Hovden Cannery, which had become the last operating cannery on Cannery Row in 1962.
In 1977, the building was entirely rebuilt with funds from The David and Lucile Packard Fund.10 Completed in June 1977, the renovation preserved the original exterior. The interior of the building was constructed to house the Walter K. Fisher Lecture Hall, the C. B. van Niel Library, and a suite of lockers and showers for SCUBA divers. At the time, van Niel library maintained a constantly expanding collection of books in the fields most under study (algology, invertebrate zoology, development, ecology, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology and biological oceanography). About 450 serial publications in these fields were received. The collection consisted of some 15,000 volumes.
The original Siino Boat Works building had been leased to Monterey Sculpture. The warehouse was converted into a foundry with studio space that was owned and operated by local artist Charles “Larry” Fischer. Once the Monterey Bay Aquarium opened, Fischer relocated to Cannery Row, and the old Siino Boat Works Building was renovated and named after Walter Fisher, the first full-time Director of the Hopkins Marine Station. The Fisher Building was used as laboratory and classroom space.
1. Michael Hemp, Cannery Row: The History of John Steinbeck’s Old Ocean View Avenue (Carmel, CA: The History Company, 2002).
2. Janet Magno (Siino) Martinez, Master Boat Builders of Italy (MM Publishing: mmpublishing@gmail.com, 2014).
3. Michael Hemp, Cannery Row: The History of John Steinbeck’s Old Ocean View Avenue (Carmel, CA: The History Company, 2002)
4. Annual Report of the President of Stanford University For The Thirtieth Academic Year ending August 31, 1921.
5. Stanford University Bulletin, Graduate Study 1922-23.
6. Scientific Notes and News. Hopkins Marine Station. Science. July 24,1925. Volume 62, Issue 1595. pp. 76-8.
7. Albert Campbell, “Owner of Monterey Boat-Yard is a Real Old Timer Locally,” Monterey Peninsula Herald (28 February 1941).
8. Monterey Peninsula Herald, Monterey, CA December 29, 1939.
9. Real Life on Cannery Row: Real People, Places and Events that Inspired John Steinbeck. A. L. Lundy Angel City Press, 2008.
10. Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University (brochure) 1984.