By 1930 the Salinas population reached 10,263, and would continue to grow given the area’s many advantages. Fine weather, an expanding agricultural industry, and later the government assisted building programs and projects drew refugees from the harsh reality of the Depression and the conditions of the Dust Bowl in other parts of the county. New residents were not always welcome.

Dust Bowl Migrants settled in the Alisal area to the east of Salinas, lived in camps and trailer s, and worked in the agricultural industry alongside the Filipinos and other laborers. Their arrival concerned many local residents. Some residents opposed the camps because “they didn’t want their belongings stolen by encamped transients.” Agricultural leaders objected to the establishment of labor camps feeling that such camps were not only an easy target for agitators and Communists, but a focal point for disease.

In an effort to eliminate the roadside camps, Monterey County Supervisors drew up an or dinance giving the government power to regulate sanitary conditions in private camps and to oversee labor camps.

Wage disputes, strikes and anger were surfacing in the Monterey County agricultural industry. In 1933 the local Philippines Mail reported violence against Filipino laborers. On September 5, 1935 the Monterey Herald revealed Sheriff Carl Abbott had sworn in special deputies for the duration of the lettuce harvest, and listed the thirty - two names of these deputies who were assigned to protect the lettuce sheds. In the paper Abbott stated emphatically that the deputies carried no weapons; were not being paid by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors; and were not members of the Associated Farmers.

However, none of these early incidents had the impact of the virulent and bitter Salinas Lettuce Strike that began on September 4, 1936, when 3,200 members of the Fruit and Vegetable Workers Union walked out of the Salinas - Watsonville lettuce sheds. The Philippines Mail of September 7, 1936 reported that a Filipino worker was a casualty of the first day. Editor and Publisher Venerando C. Gonzales warned his readers to “be thoughtful and vigilant in their relations with employers, and also [to] avoid misunderstandings or conflict with the strikers employed in the 70 lettuce sheds of the Salinas Valley.”

Art Sbrana, head of the Grower Shippers, conferred with Salinas city officials and local law enforcement in a Cominos Hotel conference room. Colonel Henry R. Sanborn was hired by the employers to coordinate strike defense activities. [Grower - Shipper Association of Central California, Burton Anderson, 2005] Growers eventually offered a five cent increase in wages, but refused to grant union preference in the sheds, a critical point for the workers. Growers advertised for shed workers but warned “radicals and Reds” not to apply.

Violence erupted on September 15, 1936 at Main and Gabilan Streets and then spread, making National headlines. On September 17, 1936 in The Salinas Index Journal Sheriff Carl H. Abbott declared the situation “beyond the ability of the regularly constituted law enforcement agencies.” Citing Penal Code Section 723 Abbott commanded all able - bodied male citizens between 18 and 45 to report to his office and assist him in seizing, arresting, and confining persons. Residents were forbidden to congregate on the public streets and public places of the city. In October, over the protests of the Fruit and Vegetable Union, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors passed an Anti - Picketing Ordinance.

The shippers charged that Communist agitators fomented the strike. The San Francisco Chronicle labeled the growers “vigilantes.” The strike was eventually called off with the assurance that as many former workers as could be would be rehired.

The strike may have ended in November of 1936, but the effects were long felt. Even as late as 1974 the Salinas Californian observed that this strike, which pitted shed workers from the Alisal against their Salinas employers, raised a formidable psychological barrier between the two communities.

Despite the agriculture turmoil, city leaders actively pursued the New Deal and other government programs available for building and projects. The year 1936 was particularly remarkable. Begun that year were: the Monterey County Courthouse on Alisal Street, with the heads model ed by Jo Mora that jut out from the building and still delight visitors today; Washington Junior High School, still a middle school in 2009; the Federal Building at 100 Alisal still housing a post office, a law library and local offices for area representatives in 2009; and a separate campus for Salinas Junior College on Homestead Avenue, still on the same site in 2009 as Hartnell College.

Other projects of the decade were the following: a second Armory; the addition of a Tubercular Ward at the County Hospital; the Main Street Underpass; and plans for construction of a new Salinas Airport. City Engineer Donald Davies also submitted requests for a municipal golf course, sewers, parks, a swimming pool, storm drains and a jail. Numerous schools were also built.

Salinas made its first annexation to the original city in 1933, a 52 - acre addition to the south side along Romie Lane. While out in the Alisal the East Salinas Improvement Club organized with sixty members in 1938. The group began a movement to build sidewalks, plant trees and improve housing and sewage in the Alisal area. By 1940 the Alisal Branch of the Monterey County Free Libraries was opened.