Monterey California Vintage Retro Cotton Canvas Tote Bag - Black Logo

What’s with Monterey? California started here: Monterey was the capital of Spanish and then Mexican Alta California from 1777 to 1846. The state’s first constitution was written in its Colton Hall in 1849, and then the sardines came, Cannery Row boomed and busted, and the deep blue bay fed it all. Our retro Monterey, California logo is for the people who know that story, or want to.

This is the Monterey tote: our retro Monterey, California logo printed in black on both sides of a heavy cotton canvas bag, the hand-lettered vintage type reading like an old crate label from the Row. It carries groceries from the farmers market, books from the library on Pacific Street, or towels to Del Monte Beach, with no slogan and no cartoon otter, just the town. One of the better Monterey gifts for someone who is from here, or wishes they were.

The bay was Rumsen Ohlone country long before Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed in and named it for the Count of Monte Rey in 1602. Settlement came 168 years later: on June 3, 1770, Gaspar de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra founded the Monterey presidio and the mission, and Serra moved the mission to Carmel the next year. From 1777 to 1846 Monterey was the capital of Alta California, Spanish and then Mexican, and the town still shows it. The 1794 Royal Presidio Chapel is California’s oldest stone building; the 1827 Custom House is its oldest government building and California Historical Landmark Number One; Colton Hall is where delegates wrote the state’s first constitution in 1849. Walk the Path of History past the Larkin House and the Cooper-Molera Adobe and you are inside the Monterey Colonial style that carries the town’s name.

The second Monterey was built on fish. The first cannery opened in 1902, and by the 1930s the waterfront was the Sardine Capital of the World, the Cannery Row that John Steinbeck made famous, though the real one smelled of fish oil and steam. Around 1950 the sardines simply stopped coming, the canneries closed, and the Row sat quiet until the old Hovden cannery was reborn in 1984 as a place to look at the bay instead of canning it. Today Cannery Row history is the draw, along with sea otters in the kelp, the sea lions on the Coast Guard pier, whale watching on Monterey Bay, the coastal trail past the old Fisherman’s Wharf, and Point Lobos just down the coast. Area code 831, fog over the pines, and a bay deep enough to hide a canyon: that is the Monterey on this logo. Read the full Monterey history behind the design.

The tote is heavy 12 oz 100% cotton canvas with a clean, minimalist look, one size 15 x 16 inches with 20-inch self-fabric handles for a comfortable shoulder carry and a sewn-in label. The black logo is printed on both sides, so it reads whichever way it hangs. A sturdy everyday carry and a Monterey souvenir that earns its keep. We are the Monterey gift shop that never closes: Monterey apparel and Monterey Bay souvenirs drawn in-house, not bought by the pallet. As with everything we make, profits support hunger relief.