The Burning of the Point Alones Chinese Village
Near Monterey, California
On the rocky point where Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station now stands, there was once a thriving Chinese fishing village called Point Alones. Founded in the eighteen fifties and sixties, it grew into one of the largest Chinese settlements on the West Coast, and unlike the bachelor labor camps of that era, this was a community of families, with women and children, more than five hundred people at its height. Its fishermen pioneered the squid fishery of Monterey Bay, drying their catch for markets across the Pacific.
But the land was owned by the railroad backed Pacific Improvement Company, which by nineteen oh four wanted the village gone. The residents refused to leave. On the evening of the sixteenth of May, nineteen oh six, fire swept through the village.
Witnesses described piles of hay laid out to spread the flames and fire hoses that had been cut, and crowds of spectators cheered as the homes burned and then looted the ruins. Historians say the company's fingerprints were all over it, though no arson was ever proven and no one was ever charged. The company then fenced the site, posted guards, and forbade the residents to rebuild.
More than a century later, in twenty twenty two, the city of Pacific Grove formally apologized for the injustice done to them.
