I must be slipping...
I never imagined I'd find myself writing anything positive about the town where I was born. When asked where I'm from I most often respond Reno, Nevada cuz that's where I lived from age 4 thru 14. But if you hold my feet to the fire I'll admit that in Feb 1953 we left Reno and returned to Stockton, California where I finished high school. Then I left again for (6 months) active duty in the Marine Corps. When I was discharged from Active duty I found a job in Stockton with Standard Stations Inc (Chevron these days), then off to college in Inglewood (in the LA area).
Stockton is in the northern center of the California farming area called the Central Valley. That valley stretches from Bakersfield in the south all the way to Redding in the north- about 450 miles of nothing but farming. Stockton is larger than many of the towns in the valley. During and after the depression of the 1930s, population grew to about 35,000 and then ... died. Or so I thought.
Today I understand that in 2022 Stockton has an estimated population of about 322,000. I would never have imagined that possibility because most growth had stagnated in the mid-1950s. There was an older generation in power when I left and they didn't like the direction of the growth both in terms of location and types of industry. I'm aware of this only because of the guy I roomed with during my college days. Mel's dad was one of those who sipped wine, smoked crooked cigars and spoke to his friends in whispered tones at the back of a certain restaurant with a startling black & white tile floor. Those quiet conversations apparently often decided the fate of much of what went on within the city limits. And to my knowledge not a one of them had ever run for public office. It's how it was.
Stockton is known for 3 things-
- it's the world's largest inland port,
- it's the center of immense agricultural production, and
- it's the largest town in the US to go bankrupt
Well... largest to go bankrupt until Detroit came along and stole the spot light.
Historically Stockton was a hub of agricultural activity in north-central California before (think Great Depression) plus during & after WW-II. Sharpe Army Supply Depot used to live there- near the adjacent town of Lathrop. The location was chosen in large part because of the activity of the inland port. Supply ships could load/unload then travel to sea by traversing the 100+ miles of Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta, thru Suisun Bay & Carquinez Straits, West then South across San Pablo Bay and out the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay. A long trip but well away from the coast and, in war time, a tiny bit safer.
More recently the feds came along and deactivated the military activity on Ruff & Ready Island starting in 1996. Now my old Marine Reserve unit is destined to be an apartment building or whatever. Dunno what happened to Sharp's. What little I know is because my grandfather, John Oscar Bowman, worked there during WW-II supervising a warehouse.
Historically Stockton was a place to get work during the dark days of the depression. And that included everything from office work (that's how my parents met) to farm labor. When I was in high school in the early 1950s I had several friends that had arrived in the preceding 15 years from Oklahoma & Kansas where agriculture land had blown away in the dust bowl.
Labor camps were on every large farm. They amounted to community housing in barracks-like structures (think Quonset huts). After the time of the depression those living spaces continued service as housing for contract labor from Mexico. The labor contractors would collect workers at the border, complete the paperwork to give them a work visa, drive them north into the Central Valley where they worked in the fields till those work visas expired 90 (? maybe 180) days later. Driving thru the old downtown area of Stockton on a Sunday was a challenge as Mexicans dressed in spotless white clothes (!) with sombreros, sandals & serapes stood around the street corners killing time before they returned to the fields the next morning and bent their backs all day weeding, cultivating or picking.
Even in the mid-1950s I met occasional recent emigrants from the Midwest when I was working for Standard Stations near Fairfield. During harvest, families of 5-8 people in a single car arrived to fill the tank and then head down to the river for the night. The car was their home (not so different from today!). Generally speaking there is no rain from the end of June till early September so it was do-able. But by mid-September they needed to find something more protected as well as warmer weather so they drifted south stopping eventually in Bakersfield. They wait out the winter there in the south then follow the planting north to repeat it all again. The scenario was the same during the depression of the '30s.
My mother's cousin Earl married a woman who lived thru that Central Valley ordeal in the '30s. Bertha Walsh wrote a book about that experience entitled Fruit Tramps. Bertha is (was?) a remarkable person who owned the Western Auto store in the old Gold Rush mining town of Angels Camp. She was a widow when she met Earl.
The Delta area was very productive with multiple crops per season. There were field crops like asparagus plus pretty much anything that fills the veggie department of the local grocery store. But there were also orchards filled with walnuts, almonds, peaches, cherries and apricots. And then there were the endless fields of grapes (think Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck) for both the table and for wine making. In fact that same roommate was the son of a man that made his own wine for family consumption. Up to 50 gallons per family was allowed annually by the Feds (prohibition? what prohibition!) for personal consumption as I recall the number. Several families got together and made 300 gallons to be divided among them. He also owned 6 liquor licenses two of which were active at a couple bars he owned on skid row.
As I said, Stockton is in the middle of the 'delta area' of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers. 'Delta' in this case means there were islands of land (basically river sediment which was largely peat) in the river bed of the San Joaquin River. Those 'islands' had been pumped free of water then used exclusively to grow produce. The growing surface was below the level of the San Joaquin River, so you can anticipate it had to be pumped constantly to prevent flooding. Along that line...
When I was young (the printing press had been invented but not too long before) I recall a Thanksgiving weekend home from Inglewood. Mel called me and asked if I was up for filling sand bags cuz several of the islands were near flood level and they needed volunteers. I was, we did, and I hope it helped but when you do something like that in the middle of the night it's hard to imagine any real difference- the flooding threat was massive. Had I been able to see I would likely have been scared witless. I believe that was the year Frank's Tract flooded (again) and it was never recovered- on water skiing trips I recall a huge tractor submerged midway up the long exhaust stack, leaning sideways at about a 45° angle- a reminder that nothing in the delta is permanent without constant effort to recover the land.
So with all this agricultural activity I find it hard to imagine how the town came to be named "Stockton". I did a brief Google search, clicked on a Wikipedia hit and Presto!- I learned that Stockton is one of several places in the US named after a US Navy hero. According to that Wikipedia entry...
Robert Field Stockton (August 20, 1795 – October 7, 1866) was a United States Navy commodore, notable in the capture of California during the Mexican–American War. He was a naval innovator and an early advocate for a propeller-driven, steam-powered navy. Stockton was from a notable political family and also served as a U.S. senator from New Jersey.
Among other things, Stockton promoted some long range guns for Navy use which didn't work out so well though he managed to get his name separated from that debacle! But the biggy in my view happened early in his career when he and Dr. Eli Ayers negotiated the purchase of the land for the creation of the nation state of Liberia in Africa. He left the Navy to pursue a political career only to return to take command of the first Navy steam powered, screw driven large gun ship the USS Princeton in 1843.
And if you want a real thrill check this flowery depiction of the history of Stockton on the city's web page. Basically it's a white wash of taking land away from the Indian inhabitants as part of the purchase of a 49,000 acre Spanish Land Grant by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849. As an aside, Carlos had been named Charles at birth but when he went after the Spanish Land Grant he had his name changed to Carlos- kinda sets the tone of his business life. Weber had his name plastered all over town including the biggest hotel when I was living there. That hotel seems to have disappeared and my aging memories with it.
One of the few cultural positives in Stockton is College of the Pacific, now renamed University of the Pacific. It's a private school and was particularly known for a summer program for choral music (well... that was in 1955 so maybe that's just history). It was well known enough that Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians appeared there annually for a few years during the Christmas season. And Harry Belafonte brought his choral group there sometime after I graduated from Stockton High.
And if you're a football fan it may be interesting to know that College of the Pacific (COP) was home turf to Amos Alonso Stagg- one of the better known coaches in his time. He created the 'Statue of Liberty play' which was copied by most schools at the time. I happened to see it executed by COP at a home game and it left the players and referees so baffled the referees called the play dead even though the runner had gotten the ball into the opponents end zone- with not a defender within 30 yards.
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