SALINAS, CALIFORNIA OVERVIEW
Salinas is a central California city about 100 miles south of San Francisco. With a population of just over 150,000, Salinas is the most populous city in Monterey County, as well as its county seat. Salinas is located just inland from Pacific coastline.
The original residents of Salinas area were the Ohlone tribe; the tribe were primarily hunters and gatherers with a partial dependence on the natural acorn crop. Additionally, the Ohlone contributed to the commerce of the four Spanish Missions nearby to the Salinas area.
During the rancho period of Mexican rule in California, the Salinas area included several large land grants but few people. The land was primarily used for grazing livestock.
After the Mexican American war, early settlers James Bryant Hill and Jacob Leese purchased two ranchos with farming crops in mind. The actual city of Salinas grew from 1857 to 1867 to include a store, a blacksmith, stables, and a hotel. The city began to attract dairy farmers as well as crop farmers and cattle ranchers.
The city connected to the rest of the nation via the Southern Pacific Railroad, which came to Salinas in November of 1872. That same year, Salinas became incorporated and was granted the county seat of Monterey County.
By early 1900’s, Salinas had the infrastructure to support mass strawberry, beans, sugar beet, flour, and dairy industries. Unrivalled growing conditions, fertile soil, ideal climate and generous underground water supply from the unusual “upside down” Salinas River made Salinas the perfect environment to become known as the “Salad Bowl of the World” due to it’s large commercial agriculture industry.
Although the 1906 earthquake destroyed many of the brick commercial buildings downtown, the building were repaired quickly.
The Spreckels sugar beet factory opened in 1899. Business man Claus Spreckels founded the company town of Spreckels just south of Salinas, California, where the company’s factory was located. At first, many of the sugar beets came from farms in Woodland, California, but later came from company-founded farms in King City, Soledad, and Hollister.
Lettuce soon became Salinas’ number one crop. The development of refrigerated ice railcars made it possible to ship lettuce nationwide and lettuce replaced sugar beets as the Salinas Valley mainstay, although other row crops began to emerge as well, including the artichoke. During WWII, the Bracero program allowed Mexican laborers to pick the fields that assisted in the war effort.
To keep the United Field Workers union (UFW) out of California lettuce and vegetable fields, most Salinas Valley growers signed sweetheart contracts with the Teamsters Union. Some 10,000 Central Coast farm workers respond by walking out on strike. The UFW used the boycott to convince some large vegetable companies to abandon their Teamster agreements and sign UFW contracts.
The so-called Salad Bowl strike was a series of strikes, mass pickets, boycotts and secondary boycotts that led to the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history. Shipments of fresh lettuce nationwide virtually ceased, and the price of lettuce doubled almost overnight. Lettuce growers lost $500,000 a day. A state district court enjoined labor leader Cesar Chávez personally and the UFW as an organization from engaging in picketing, but both Chávez and the union refused to obey the court’s orders.
Chávez spent two weeks in jail in Salinas for refusing to obey the court order. Former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete Rafer Johnson, Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, visited him in jail.
On March 26, 1971, the Teamsters and UFW signed a new jurisdictional agreement reaffirming the UFW’s right to organize field workers, although Teamsters did continue to organize in some places, with frequent violent attacks on UFW members. The Teamsters finally left the field in 1973.
Author John Steinbeck was born in Salinas in 1902; his father was the Monterey County treasurer. Steinbeck’s classic literary works such as Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and Cannery Row are heavily influenced by his time growing up in Salinas. Today, Steinbeck’s home in Salinas is preserved and the nearby National Steinbeck Center is a museum and memorial dedicated to the author.
In 1949, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) began construction on the Moss Landing Power Plant. Five natural gas and oil powered steam units were built during the 1950s. In 1964, the construction of two additional units began (6 and 7), with two new 500-foot (150 m) stacks. The plant was constructed by constructed and maintained by PGE in house staff as well as outside contractors.
Salinas area mesothelioma lawsuits have been brought based on asbestos exposure that occurred at many specific worksites around the county such as:
- Associated Oil
- Crane Company
- Del Monte Cannery
- E.F Brady
- Firestone Tire & Rubber
- Foremost Dairy
- JM Smucker Company
- Nestles Chocolate
- P.E. O’Hair
- Pacific Gas & Electric, Moss Landing
- Frank Raiter Canning Company
- Sego Milk Products
- Spreckels Sugar
- Western Pipe Supply
- Wickes Lumber
- Western Plumbing
- Weyerhaeuser Paper
Salinas mesothelioma cases can involve industrial exposure to asbestos by many different kinds of workers, in all variety of industrial jobs, trades, and occupations, including:
- Boilermakers
- Carpenters
- Construction Workers
- Custodians
- Drillers
- Drywallers
- Electricians
- Flooring Installers
- Foundry Workers
- Glaziers
- Home Repair
- HVAC Repair
- Insulators
- Iron Workers
- Laborers
- Lathers
- Machine Operators
- Machinists
- Engineers
- Molders
- Painters
- Paintmakers
- Pipe Installation
- Pipefitters
- Plasterers
- Plumbers
- Public Works projects
- Repairman
- Riggers
- Roofers
- Seaman
- Sheetmetal Workers
- Steamfitters
- Superintendents/Foremen
- Tiremen
- Vehicle Repair
- Welders
EXPERIENCE OF SALINAS MESOTHELIOMA LAWYERS
The offices of the mesothelioma law firm of Kazan, McClain, Satterley & Greenwood are located in the beautiful Jack London Square area of Oakland, California. The Kazan firm’s mesothelioma lawyers are able to file and prosecute cases throughout Monterey county and California.
Salinas mesothelioma lawsuits can be handled in Monterey County or in other California couts, including the Alameda County civil court system. Salinas mesothelioma lawsuits are often designated complex litigation, and plaintiffs are often entitled to preference on the court’s trial calendars, allowing their cases to proceed quickly to trial and resolution.
Over the last four decades, the Salinas mesothelioma law firm of Kazan, McClain, Satterley & Greenwood has recovered over $4 billion in jury verdicts and settlements in mesothelioma cases arising throughout California, including in Salinas.
CONTACT THE SALINAS MESOTHELIOMA LAWYERS
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, contact us now to speak with one of our partners. The mesothelioma lawyers at Kazan McClain, Satterley & Greenwood will bring their decades of expertise and success to your claim for mesothelioma caused by asbestos exposure in Salinas. We can be reached 24/7. To get a free consultation with one of our mesothelioma attorneys, please call 1-888-887-1238, fill out the form on this page or use our live chat widget.