2. Location, History and Economy

Moss Landing is in Monterey County on the eastern shore of Monterey Bay at the confluence of Elkhorn Slough and Moro Cojo Slough. The community encompasses 0.4 square miles on the ‘island,’ a strip of land separated from the main shore by an ocean inlet. Moss Landing is 25.4 miles south of Santa Cruz and 95.8 miles south of San Francisco. Moss Landing State Wildlife Area makes up the area immediately to the northeast of the community. Moss Landing State Beach sits on the north side of the pass across from the island. The community’s waterways also join with the Elkhorn Slough State Marine Conservation Area.

Moss Landing occupies the ancestral homeland of the Ohlone/Costanoan (the name Costanoan comes from the Spanish Costaños, meaning coast people). The Ohlone Ancestral lands extend from San Francisco Bay to Salinas and numbered at least 15,000 before European contact. Part of the Wacharon (Guachirron) and Calendaruc village area was in the present-day Moss Landing area. The Ohlone/Costanoan depended heavily on marine resources such as fish, shellfish and sea lions. After two centuries of dispossession and colonization, several tribal communities descendent of the Ohlone/Costanoan continue to live in the area today, preserving and protecting their cultural heritage, traditions and ancestral lands.

The area around Moss Landing was first colonized by the Spanish in the 1700s. In 1822, Mexico separated from Spain and laid claim to the region. Cattle ranching became the dominant industry through a patchwork of ranchos—Mexican landholdings that dotted the landscape. During this period Elkhorn Slough was named Estero de Vallejo after one of the three prominent Mexican landholding families in the area, the Vallejos (Source). Mexico ceded the area to the United States in 1848, however, the name remained for several years.

The area was eventually renamed “Moss Landing” after the first American family that settled the area in 1866. Captain Charles Moss was a Texas businessman who saw potential in the location. With the help of Portuguese whaler Cato Vierra, Moss built a 200ft wharf for shipping and a pier for water traffic (Source). The wharf was the main shipping point for Salinas and Pajaro valley crops, and shipping increased with the arrival of the railroad in the late 1800s (Source). As immigrants from America and China settled the area around Moss Landing, they began farming and harvesting timber. These farmers played an important role in the Gold Rush by supplying miners with sugar beets, potatoes, lumber and other products (Source).

Commercial whaling was introduced to Monterey Bay by Portuguese whalers in the 1850s, however, the industry also drew Asian immigrants to the area. Whalers rendered the blubber into oil for lanterns. Whaling went into decline with the introduction of kerosene in the 1870s which devalued the price of whale oil (Source).

At the turn of the century, the California whaling industry saw a resurgence as a result of modern whaling gear and vessels (Source). In 1906 an earthquake destroyed the wharf and much of the infrastructure (Source). However, in 1931, a fish canning plant replaced the wharf, and soon many more followed. In 1918, a Norwegian whaling company, the California Sea Products Company, built a large whaling factory in Moss Landing. The factory drew spectators to the processing operation and produced numerous products such as oil for soap, meat for chicken feed, and bonemeal. After several boom years, the factory closed in 1927 due to a drastic decline in whale populations, a drop in whale oil prices, and competition from offshore factory ships (Source).

As early as the 1880s, Moss Landing had a small-scale sardine fishery. However, the coastal pelagic fishery grew in the early 20th century as fishing boats called Monterey clippers and Sicilian lamparas were introduced to the harbor by Italian immigrant fishers (Source). The closure of European fishing grounds during World War I gave a boost to West Coast fisheries. Sardine cannery production increased as a result of wartime demand (Source). The growing fishing industry prompted the California Legislature to establish the Moss Landing Harbor District in 1947 to support new canneries and safe passage. However, within five years the sardine population collapsed and many sardine fishers moved south to San Pedro (Source). The Harbor District struggled to stay in operation as fish processing businesses left. The Harbor District was able to make a franchise agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric in 1950 to build the Moss Landing power plant, which became the second-largest power plant in the world at the time. The plant’s smokestacks have come to be one of the community’s more well-known features (Source).

With the collapse of sardines, the fishers and buyers who remained in the Monterey Bay area shifted their focus to other coastal pelagic species such as anchovy, mackerel, and squid. Although northern anchovies have been fished off the West Coast since 1916, the fishery didn’t expand until the Pacific sardine fishery collapsed in the 1940s and 1950s when processors began canning anchovies. However, consumer demand for anchovies decreased after the sardine population recovered. Today, northern anchovies are used mainly for baitfish meal (Source). The market squid fishery became California’s largest commercial fishery by volume in 1993 and by 1996 it was the most valuable fishery in the state. Moss Landing and Monterey are the two major coastal pelagic species receiving ports in Monterey Bay. By the early 2000s, Moss Landing was receiving more coastal pelagic species than Monterey. Eventually, groundfish, halibut, spot prawn, crab, salmon, albacore, and other fisheries developed at Moss Landing (Source).

At the same time that other fisheries began to grow, Moss Landing began welcoming marine research facilities. California State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) was established in the 1960s, however, the facilities were damaged repair during the 1987 Loma Prieta earthquake, though have since been repaired. In the 1990s, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, now a renowned ocean science center, was established at the site of the old whaling factory in Moss Landing. Moss Landing is also home to the California Marine Pollution Studies Lab and the Monterey-Santa Cruz County Sea Grant marine advisor. In 1992, the Federal government established the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, a sanctuary encompassing 276 miles of shoreline and 6,094 square miles of ocean (Source). Today, Moss Landing is a tourist destination well-known for antiques and ecotourism.