I need a little help with this one. It is an undated print from the files showing boat construction in Morro Bay. The top of the powerplant stacks are painted dark and in the background there is a waterfront dry dock facility and the Galley.
Looking at the cars I can see a VW bug and bus so my best guess is this is from the mid 1960′s. Any Morro Bay experts out there who can help out?
Check out The Tribune this Sunday for a story on the decline of the fishing industry and the impacts on Morro Bay.
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UPDATE: This photo is from Dorn’s the Original Breakers Cafe deck. September 15, 2008
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Is that where Wavelengths is located today?
I think it is where the bakery is today…if someone sends in a photo I’ll post it when I get back.
dmiddlecamp{at}thetribunenews.com
This is behind the bakery that’s still on the embarcadero. At the time it was a fish and chips joint. It’s an actual boatyard where working fishmen could work on their boats. Back then, people actually respected fishermen and realized that they were the lifeblood of Morro Bay.
Unfortunately, in recent years, the city has decided that tourism is more important than providing food for people. Morro Bay is sorely lacking a decent boatyard for the hardworking commercial fishermen and has allowed the infrastructure to deteriorate. It’s no wonder that the city is in the financial situation that it is in.
Those were wonderful days when hardworking fishermen were respected enough to provide facilities for them. When the catch came in, people would go to the pier and watch it be brought in.
Bakery? (I’ve been on too many combat tours, MB has changed way too much too fast) I believe it is across the street from the old Bob’s fish & chips (always my favorite), behind the former Fishbowl take-out.
The large sloop on the left, is nearly sitting on today’s giant chess board.
From the cars, it is definitely very early ’60′s
Wait, how are you sure that’s even Morro Bay?
David,
You’re correct. The Fish
Bowl restaurant has been a bakery for many years.
Thanks Stan.
BTW, it’s hard to blame MB for the decline of local ship building and the fishing fleet, when foolish enviro-nit wits pass legislation that essentially ended commercial fishing on the central coast.
No local fleet, no local fishing, no local fresh fish & chips. Almost all the fish eaten in MB today, is Canadian, Mexican, or Japanese.
Sad, really.
If it helps, that appears to be a 63 or 64 Pontiac at the far left of the picture. Pictures like this allow you to “go home again” in a sense. I miss the time and the town.
The top photograph here would have been about 1964 (1965?)…a few months after the beginning of a cooperative effort by five different folks to build five 50+ft schooners, with a boat bldr, Dave Baxter, from southern CA (I can’t recall the name of the city he was from)… that picture is of the “Little” (Original?) Fish Bowl…there was a vaacant lot to the north of the Fish bowl and there was one (two?) schooner being built there…
I’ll pass this along to Popeye Thornber, one of the boat vldrs and see if he will honor you with nitty-gritty details…/s/zpc
Thanks for the comment Zorus. This image has been harder than I expected to caption.
…from Popeye, ~5-1-2009:
Hi, Zorus and Judy…Thanks for the April 23rd copy of the Bay News. Some interesting stuff in there, and I even recognized some of the folks in the photos.
In the other news about the schooner photos, I think you pretty well covered it with your answer, Zorus. In that Dave’s boat is planked to the shears, and Jack’s boat is nearly planked, I’d guess the timing would put it summer of ’65. We laid the first keel (Dave’s) in June of ’64, and it was only a couple weeks after that when Jack’s keel was laid. There were two more keels laid just to the north of Jack’s, but those people abandoned their projects due to health and other reasons. The “bones” sat there for maybe a couple of years after Dave’s and Jack’s were launched in summer of ’66. Another of the schooners was built across the embarcadero by Guy Uptegrove who owned “Bob’s Seafood”. Ron Mock was apprenticing under Dave, and after the boats were launched, Ron received his shipwright papers from Dave, who had been a shipwright for many years. Dave was from Newport, Ca, as far as I recall. I went down south with him on one of the trips to purchase planking lumber, and we visited the old Larson’s boat haul-out and repair yard there in Newport where Dave first went to work, learning how to build and repair boats.
The “original” Fish Bowl was in the same place as the kitchen of the “Sun and Bun”….just a little walk up shack that sold fish and chips. No inside seating. I remember it from my first trip to Morro Bay during the summer of 1946. I don’t know when the Fish Bowl was expanded into a full restaurant, but it was before I arrived back there in ’64. The haul-out yard next to Bob’s Seafood burned down and there was not enough interest or money to rebuild. That property was purchased by a local who then developed it into its present building configuration.
One other thing of interest during that summer of 1964: A series of surges set many boats adrift, even sank a harbor patrol boat and at least one other small sailing yacht. Had it been high tide instead of low tide during those seven-foot surges, there would have been much damage to the waterfront properties. As it was, there was only a small trickle of sea water that breached the seawall. Oh, yes…those surges were set up by the Alaska quake and the resulting sunami.
That’s all I remember about ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll write more sooner. Hugs all the way around. Please enjoy.
Popeye
Growing up in Morro Bay during the sixties was a very special time for a teenager like me. I have a great number of very fond memories of the events that took place in our town. Besides hanging out at the pool hall and unloading fish boats, I was on the volunteer fire Dept. I was twenty the summer of 64 when the storm surges hit the harbor. The fire dept. members were called upon to evacuate the establishments along the embarcadero for safety reasons. I remember standing on the short dock behind Brebes place and watched as the water came into the harbor like a large wave and it would rise to the top of the landing then it would reverse and rush back out of the harbor as quickly as it came in and it repeated this process 3-4 times devastating the Oyster beds in the back bay and dislodging planking and timbers all along the way.Victor Downs
Yes, the 60′s was a great time to grow up in Morro Bay. I remember working at the Breakers pancake house and “Big Breakers” next door as a busboy for 75 cents an hour plus tips while my folks worked for groceries at Ward’s Ceramic Center on “C” street. When not working in the summer I would be down on the waterfront, usually under one of the many abalone processing plants, catching jack smelt which I would then take up in one of the many large wooded fish boxes that lined the piers, and sell them to the tourists. Then the waterfront was all about fishing. Now unfortunately there are more tourists than fishermen. Later on, working for Fish and Game marine resources, I sampled many a fish, both commercial and sport. Carver’s, just up from the waterfront on Beach street, was the drag boat fish processing facility. Much of the fish in those days was ground up into a grey, stinky, goo that was pumped into 50 pound bags, flash frozen and sent somewhere in the northern US and sold as mink food. There were 21 different sport fishing businesses on the waterfront around 1960. I think Virg’s is the only survivor from that time. 30 pound lingcod were a norm for a jackpot and a trip was ~$12. P.S. Zorus, now I know where you hang out! For a great history of Morro Bay, check out http://www.oldmorrobay.com EXCELLENT for Morro Bay history.
I remember eating many times at Bob’s Fish Bowl in Morro Bay from 1965 until about 1978, for the best fish & chips around. We lived in San Luis Obispo from March 1965 until July of 1967, when we moved to Long Beach, CA. There were times when we visited friends in Santa Maria, then drove to Morro Bay for fish & chips at Bob’s. Sometimes we drove back to L.B. the same day or spent a couple of days visiting with our friends but, we had to have a meal at Bob’s while we were close. I understand that Bob’s became a victim of the economy and that is a shame if their quality was still as good as it was in the ’60′s and 70′s.
I loved living in MB during 1962-63, worked for Dr Colglazier, as he finished up his residency…I finished High School in San Luis…went back in 1970 on my honeymoom and again many times on vacations. Picture is from that era, I drove a red 1956 station wagon, with chrome reverse rims…so cool
Ellen Hall, Fountain Valley CA
the picture was from the 1960, i remember the sail boats under construction
The older picture brings back many good memories of how MB was when I lived there as a child. It was a quiet little fishing village and the only tourists were people from the valley escaping the summer heat.
Dr. C — great to see you’re still around!!