How did World War II impact SLO County? Local museum highlights history with new exhibits
This summer, the Morro Bay State Park Museum of Natural History is expanding its focus beyond whales, fish and birds.
Located at 20 State Park Road in Morro Bay, the museum will launch a summer-long retrospective exploring how World War II impacted the Central Coast on April 27. It will feature exhibit panels, audio recordings and tactile displays.
The timing is good. The last week in April is World War II Commemoration Week, which is also being highlighted by a series of events coordinated between the History Center of San Luis Obispo County and six other local museum organizations.
According to California State Parks, the global war over there impacted us here at home in many ways.
The Museum of Natural History exhibition highlights some lesser-known stories about how our area — especially this county’s largest state park district — was directly affected by World War II, such as the gripping fear of a potential attack on the coast that initiated coastal blackouts.
In early 1942, before Margaret Soto of Cambria enlisted for what became a more than two-decade career as a U.S. Navy nurse, she was a so-called “plane watcher.” She was one of nearly 60 women trained to stand three-hour watches to make sure no airplanes passed unnoticed through Cambria airspace.
According to an archival issue of The Cambrian, her fellow watchers included Anna Lyons, Grace Sebastian, Ellen Camozzi, Kathryn Williams and Marcella Porte.
In addition to the San Luis Obispo County residents who signed up to serve in the U.S. military and then were shipped out overseas into battle, a sizeable number of soldiers came to the Central Coast to train at Camp San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay.
Before soldiers left to fight in Europe and Japan, according to California State Parks, they trained for amphibious landings along the shorelines of Montaña de Oro State Park, Morro Bay State Park and Morro Strand State Beach.
The 54th Regiment, an all-Black Coast Artillery Regiment, was headquartered at Morro Bay State Park, where they guarded the coastline from potential attack while facing discrimination in a segregated military.
After Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066 in 1942, residents of Japanese descent were forced from their coastal homes and the coastal terraces they farmed along what is known today as Montaña de Oro State Park. They were sent to internment camps.
And the crew of the Union Oil tanker SS Montebello, which was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1941, escaped the sinking ship by coming ashore near present-day Estero Bluffs and Harmony Headlands state parks.
Think about all that the next time you stroll along those sands.
The museum’s detailed exhibit will start with a refreshments-tour- and-presentations reception on April 27, starting at 5 p.m.
From 5:30 to 6:45 p.m., presenters Stuart McDowell, author of “Sinking of the SS Montebello,” and Cal Poly history lecturer Margaret Bodemer will put the dramatic events of World War II on the Central Coast into perspective.
But our state parks’ focus on history certainly doesn’t stop there. San Luis Obispo County has a plethora of state and county park sites dedicated to preserving history.
Hearst Castle honored for historical preservation
Staffers at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, the lavish former estate of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, worked to keep history available to the public during a lengthy shutdown.
The Castle has been closed to the public since March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and storm damage to the road that leads from the Visitors Center to the hilltop complex. It’s slated to reopen sometime this spring.
On April 27, the same day the Morro Bay Museum of Natural History exhibition opens, some Castle staffers will be in Sacramento to receive one of the Governor’s Historic Preservation Awards for 2021.
They’re being honored for their work on the “Unsung Heroes” display and social media postings.
“Established in 1986, the Governor’s Historic Preservation Awards is California’s only state-sponsored awards program and seeks to recognize community-centered, often grass-roots efforts going on throughout California to preserve our collective heritage,” according to the California State Parks website.
Ironically, it’s the first time the Castle has received one of those awards, and it’s the only state park being honored thusly, according to Cara O’Brien, who will be there to accept the award along with guides Sharon Foelz, Shari Fortino and Mike Smothers.
She noted that the Unsung Heroes concept was originally designed to be part of a 100th anniversary celebration at the Castle — a celebration that was stopped in its tracks by COVID-19 restrictions.
Not only was the concept going to honor the vision, dedication and long creative partnership and friendship of Hearst and architect and designer Julia Morgan, it was to highlight a much wider cast of characters in the Castle’s creations: the designers, artisans and craftspeople who took those visions and turned them into reality.
In a quick, post-shutdown pivot, Castle staffers created different ways for the public to stay in touch with the state historical monument, even though they weren’t allowed to visit it.
Those educational prongs included the Unsung Heroes video series, a “Today’s Voice from the Past” quote campaign of daily emails and a three-panel exhibit in the Castle’s Visitor Center. That will be unveiled when Hearst Castle reopens, currently scheduled to happen Wednesday, May 11.
Key Unsung Heroes educational products were available free of charge to the public in a Smithsonian digital collection.
The information was deliberately created to be informative and enjoyable for adults while fun and relatable for students studying science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
There were even online exercise classes.
So, next time you need a great history fix, park yourself in one of San Luis Obispo County’s great state and local parks, monuments, landmarks and museums. Then soak it all in.
This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 5:05 AM.
