Building Cannery Row

Along Monterey’s shoreline, fish processing plants on Ocean View Avenue underwent constant physical change during the fish-canning era as storm damage and the need to accommodate new technologies for expanding production led to annual alterations and additions. Roofing contractor Charles L. Frost was a prominent Monterey builder and supervised crews such as those hot mopping cannery roofs, while work also progressed to raise the roof height of the Carmel Canning Company. Enclosed conveyor crossovers moved processed fish products to railside warehousing, and builders on Cannery Row included Ross Elio, Charles D. Todd, Sam Vassalo, and architect Robert Jones, who designed many cannery buildings. P.A. Hansen’s Union Supply Company and the T.A. Work Lumber Company supplied materials, and the Edgewater Packing Company, designed by Monterey City Engineer Howard Severance in 1917, was the Row’s only brick fish processing plant.

Monterey, California · United States