Hovden Cannery

The Hovden Cannery is a long, low building of corrugated iron and concrete that stretches out over the rocky Monterey Bay shoreline. Knut Hovden started this operation in nineteen sixteen to pack sardines during the peak of the industry. In nineteen forty-eight, a massive fire ripped through the wooden interior, leaving only the reinforced concrete walls intact. Hovden rebuilt the cannery immediately, installing sophisticated new packing machines that turned the facility into the final, most modern cannery to close in nineteen seventy-three.