The eighties brought plant closures, countywide water concerns (including water pollution from the old Firestone plant), and an earthquake, but the residents in this town of 80,479, with 49.52% non - white and 39.68% of that portion Mexican American, showed a determination to succeed despite adverse events.

In the early eighties, Salinas suffered closure of major industrial plants: Firestone (1,800 jobs) closed in 1980; Spreckels Sugar, an area mainstay since just before the turn of the century, (400 jobs) closed in 1981; and Peter Paul (165 jobs) closed in 1981.

In 1970, the Salinas population was 61,978. Revitalization of the downtown area of Salinas continued to be a hot topic in the local paper and with the business community. Merchants approved the central city revitalization study even though businesses were slated to pay a surcharge for the consultant. In 1973 the city’s Center City Authority decided to focus on the development of a shopping and tourist oriented “Oldtown” that would reflect the community’ s rodeo and western heritage. The planning commission approved the plan in November of 1973.

The sixties were a time of unmatched growth for the city of Salinas. When the decade opened, the Salinas census count was 28,957. In 1963 when the Alisal District voted to become East Salinas, Salinas’ population nearly doubled overnight to about 50,000.

Salinas, the brash town that eclipsed the earlier settlement of Natividad by luring in the railroad, incorporating, and winning the right to be the county seat, all in the 1870’s, was still growing eighty years later. Between 1950 and 1956 the council began a long series of annexations that brought 43 separate additions to the city, doubling the area. The additions were made on all sides of the city. Home construction was on the rise, and the population went from 13,917 in 1950 to 18,957 in 1960.

If the Thirties were tumultuous, the Forties were cataclysmic. War brought serious upheaval to the City of Salinas which had a population of 11,586 in 1940.

By 1930 the Salinas population reached 10,263, and would continue to grow given the area’s many advantages. Fine weather, an expanding agricultural industry, and later the government assisted building programs and projects drew refugees from the harsh reality of the Depression and the conditions of the Dust Bowl in other parts of the county. New residents were not always welcome.

East of Eden John Steinbeck

Admission Census of the Monterey County Hospital 21 January 1886 thru 8 February 1917 BettyAnn Lockwood Hedegard

The California Cowboy David R. Stoecklein

America’s Salad Bowl Burton Anderson

Beginnings of Salinas Robert B. Johnston

California Rodeo Salinas Burton Anderson

The Early Development of the Salinas Valley Shirley Harriet Hannah

Early History of the United Presbyterian Church of Salinas J.A. Armstrong