Monterey County History Digest

Dick and Mac McDonald came to California to seek opportunities in the movie business and wound up owning a drive-in BBQ restaurant in San Bernardino. On May 15, 1948, they opened their revamped restaurant with a Speedee Service System featuring hamburgers.

Experts say human remains found by a farmworker in Kings County appear to come from a historic or prehistoric Native American and officials are looking for help to inter them properly.

Salinas native Joe Kapp is the only quarterback to appear in the Rose Bowl, Super Bowl and Canada’s Grey Cup.

Economic models calculate reparations to eligible Black residents to address past racial inequities. The task force also voted to recommend California apologize for “gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity and African slaves and their descendants.”

“That was so impressive tonight and to stifle that energy would be a real bummer, so I realize there's a process and I see the other side of it,” said Councilman Steve McShane. “I’ve been talked to by city staff on this subject, but we can't squash that energy, we really can’t. It would be a huge mistake.”

Few assembly members have pledged their support for monetary reparations for the descendants of formerly enslaved people. Public response is split.

A state-appointed panel inching toward recommendations for reparations wants a new state agency to handle compensation and services to Black people.

A small white deer is the sole survivor of a once-large herd created by famed publisher William Randolph Hearst.

Capitola Historical Museum curator Deborah Osterberg dug back into the past 100 years and compiled a litany of weather-wrought catastrophes befalling the village and wharf.

The last time rainfall totals in San Francisco were greater, Abraham Lincoln was president.

The idea has caught the attention of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. It will present six draft strategies for bringing tourism to the Salinas and San Juan valleys.

Avi Kwa Ame National Monument will protect sacred Native American sites, wildlife.

Californians are accustomed to being battered by many of nature's whims. Less familiar are volcanic eruptions like the one currently taking place at Hawaii's Mauna Loa. But California's own volcanoes are capable of violent fury.

The woman, who moved to Santa Cruz County in the 1950s, is said to have had visions of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other Catholic saints.

Beauty drew Brieanne Mirjah D'Souza to Eureka.

“Well, people laughed when Ronald Reagan first sat down to play governor, too. And judging from Eastwood’s comments to a Herald reporter, this is not a frivolous exercise for him either,” the Herald editorialized in February 1986.

Although women sat at the bargaining table, their demand for equal pay was tossed aside both by the growers and shippers and even by their own union representatives, who made secret agreements that ignored equal pay.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom recently joined the California Museum in announcing the 15th class of inductees into the California Hall of Fame. They join 138 Californians previously inducted for embodying the state’s innovative spirit.

Low-income patients who need specialized cancer treatment often struggle to get it. Advocates say a new law is a small step toward improving services for those patients.

historian Carol McKibben writes about how Chinese Americans reclaimed swampland and carved out habitable space, which led to the political and economic success of the city by the 1880s.

Photos from Stanford University’s Ernesto Galarza collection documenting the bracero program were on view at the Salinas Sports Complex. Now county leaders hope to find a permanent place for the display, but until then the photos can be seen at the Monterey County Historical Society.

Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native American actress who declined Marlon Brandon’s Oscar in 1973, has died. Littlefeather, who was Apache and Yaqui and born Nov. 14, 1946 in Salinas, died “peacefully at home” in Marin County.

Pacific Repertory Theatre founder Stephen Moorer began his love affair with the performing arts at Carmel’s Forest Theater. And the company he founded on a shoestring now owns the Golden Bough Playhouse and manages the Forest Theater complex.

As the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary turns 30 this year, it will be celebrated by the United States Postal Service. The stamp will be one of 16 representing the National Marine Sanctuary System, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

If all goes according to plan, a boat immortalized in novels by John Steinbeck will make its return to Monterey Bay sometime in September—after a seven-year rehabilitation process. It will be repurposed as a floating classroom and research vessel.

In nine books, preeminent California chronicler Kevin Starr ranges from the state’s pre-Columbian setting to the 21st century. His knowledge, scholarship and exquisite writing are as breathtaking as one’s first view of Yosemite Valley.

The Lettuce Strike of 1936 remains a dark stain on the history of Salinas. In the second part of a series, reporter Joe Livernois writes about how powerful business interests could coordinate an effective campaign against common enemies.

“My Life in Pacific Grove,” a May release that chronicles W.R. Holman’s life, has roots back to 1979, when the then 95-year-old businessman dictated his life story to his caretaker, Louise V. Jaques.

Salinas was mostly a sleepy town before the troubles of the mid-1930s. But when Filipino farmworkers revolted against their bosses in 1934, Salinas Valley civic leaders flexed their muscle.

Tucked inside San Lorenzo County Park in King City, off the 101 Freeway, it’s easy to miss the Monterey County Agricultural and Rural Life Museum.

There are approximately 6 million items in the inventory of the California State Library. Four million of those are books, and nearly 2,000 of those are law books.

Flanked by local officials and civil rights leaders, retired Central Coast state Sen. Bill Monning unveiled a collection of his legislative papers that will be housed at the CSU Monterey Bay library.