Stilwell Hall, Fort Ord

Stilwell Hall on May 1, 2002.  Stilwell Hall was a 52,000-square-foot building that stood on a precipice at the edge of the Monterey Bay on the west side of Highway 1 on Fort Ord property.
The building was constructed between November 1940 and September 1943 under the initiative of General Joseph W. Stilwell.  It served as a recreational facility for military members for just over fifty years before Fort Ord was closed in 1994.  Abandoned, Stilwell Hall fell into disrepair and was torn down in 2003 after severe coastal erosion threatened to cause the structure to collapse into the Monterey Bay.  Today the former site is the parking lot for the Fort Ord Dunes State Park.  (Vern Fisher - Monterey Herald)

Monterey Sardines, circa 1957

Fishermen unload their catch of sardines on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey circa 1957.  In the mid-20th century, the sardine fishery off the Monterey coast seemed bottomless, resulting in a network of canneries along the waterfront on Cannery Row. At their peak, they processed millions of pounds of fish each year while providing jobs to thousands. In the 1940s, the Pacific coast sardine catch accounted for around 25% of the total seafood catch in the U.S..  Sardines started to decline by the mid-1940s.  The current thinking is that a combination of over-fishing, pollution, and the natural cycle of the sardine contributed to the rapid decline in the late 1940s.  (Monterey Herald Archives)