During the Depression of the 1930s, over 600 unemployed and homeless people lived in shacks just south of the downtown area, on the site of an abandoned shipyard. They built the shacks out of scraps of lumber, cardboard, tarpaper, canvas, and tin which they found around the waterfront. This area was known as Hooverville, named after the American president whom many people blamed for causing the Depression.

This photo, taken by James P. Lee in October 1931, shows a number of Hooverville shacks near South Massachusetts Street. The lines are filled with drying laundry. On average, each shack measured about six feet by nine feet and housed one or two men.

SHS category: Hooverville