Ed Ricketts' Pacific Biological Laboratories
Summary Chronology
1903 John B. McAbee (McAbee Beach) sells lot
to Mary J. Nelson
1917 Mary J. Nelson sells lot to Vincent
Rodriquez
as part of group of owners [deed dated Dec 18, 1917].
1923 Lot deeded [March 4, 1923] to Vincent
Rodriguez.
1928 EFR , Jr. (source: EFR papers) [July 21,
1928, stockholders meeting?] "A lot with a stoutly
built 3-room
plaster house in fair condition, with a cement floor shed in fair
shape containing 4 cement tanks, offering a splendid
place for storing
dogfish, heretofore a serious problem." Note: Ed hired Pacific Grove
contractor, RoscoeWright, to raise the structure and construct a
basement floor under it. Its stairs rose from the right to the
entry door at the center of the second floor. Sandborn 1926 shows shed.
1928 Lot deeded to Pacific Biological
Laboratories,
740 Ocean View Avenue [July 24, 1928].
1930 Structure completed by Roscoe C. Wright,
January 15, 1930.
1936 Lab destroyed by fire at adjacent Del
Mar Cannery [November 25, 1936]
1939 Ed re-finances lab as corporation [PBL
LTD], borrowing from John and Carol Steinbeck, Webster Street and Peter
J. Ferrante.
1948 Ed stuck by Del Monte Express on May 8;
dies on May 11,1948.
1949 Trustees Webster Street and Peter Ferrante
deed the lab to W.O. Lunde and his wife, and Jack [Yock] and Frances
Yee
[November 4, 1949].
1953 [2 postmarked photo postcards] Harlan
Watkins photos of shed and back of lab.
1956 Lunde and Yee sell Lab to Harlan and
Louise
Watkins [July 16, 1956].
1958 May 16, 1958 deed from Harlan and Louise
Watkins to 15 Friends of Harlan Watkins, with a financing plan by Ed
Haber, bought the lab and incorporated it with its historic name,
Pacific Biological Laboratories.
It remained a private men's club until its purchase in trust by the
City of Monterey.
1993 City of Monterey deeded Lab from Pacific
Biological Laboratories [December 2, 1993].
1997 City of Monterey, nominated by the Cannery Row
Foundation, wins the California Governor's Award for Historic
Preservation for seizmic retrofit and renovation of the Lab.
