What are your plans for the weekend? Pam Marino here with a suggestion—especially if you love history.
In this week’s paper, Features Editor Dave Faries wrote about a new exhibit at the city of Monterey’s Presidio Museum, “Extraordinary Valor: The Lost History of the Buffalo Soldiers in Monterey.” The exhibit is the culmination of three years worth of work by Jordan Leininger, artifacts specialist for Monterey’s Museum and Cultural Arts Office.
For those not familiar with the Buffalo Soldiers, they were part of four regiments of Black infantry and cavalry created by the U.S. Army after the Civil War. In 1902 they arrived in San Francisco after what Faries describes as four grueling years charging up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War followed by battling Filipino nationalists.
From San Francisco, the soldiers were sent to the Monterey Peninsula and at first camped near the Chinese fishing village of Pacific Grove, where Hopkins Marine Station stands today. Very little is known about exactly why the men were stationed there.
The mystery is part of what Leininger sought to solve, but in the end he could only develop his own theories. He did hear the local lore that the soldiers came here to build the Presidio. Is it true? Read the story to see what Leininger found out.
The free exhibit opens at 10am today, at the museum located in Lower Presidio Park, Corporal Ewing Road, Monterey. The museum is open 10am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
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