This bust of Ricketts is located at the site where he was killed when hit by a train.
The plaque reads:
"Edward Ricketts
1897-1948
Marine biologist, philosopher, writer, ecologist, and friend to many, immortalized as "Doc" of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, the real man had a profound influence on the thinking of writers, artists and scientists throught his non-teleological approach to the study of all life. Steinbeck described his as a man whose "mind had no horizons, he had an interest in everything."
At his laboratory on Cannery Row, he built up the most comprehensive file of marine tidal animals ever attempted on the Pacific Coast. His marine science writings which include Between Pacific Tides, Sea of Cortez, and The Outer Shores are still among the most respected works in the field.
His life was cut short when the car he was driving was struck by the evening train at this site on May 8, 1948. However, his influence on the world community and the people of Cannery Row will live forever.
(Dedicated March 21, 1997 by the Cannery Row Foundation)"
Wikipedia (
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"Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts (May 14, 1897 – May 11, 1948) commonly known as Ed Ricketts, was an American marine biologist, ecologist, and philosopher. He is best known for Between Pacific Tides (1939), a pioneering study of intertidal ecology, and for his influence on writer John Steinbeck, which resulted in their collaboration on the Sea of Cortez, later republished as The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)....
Ricketts was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Abbott Ricketts and Alice Beverly Flanders Ricketts. He had a younger sister, Frances, and a younger brother, Thayer. His sister Frances said of him that he had a mind like a dictionary and was often in trouble for correcting teachers and other adults. Ricketts spent most of his childhood in Chicago, except for a year in South Dakota when he was ten years old.
After a year of college, Ricketts traveled to Texas and New Mexico. In 1917 he was drafted into the Army Medical Corps. He hated the military bureaucracy but, according to John Steinbeck, "was a successful soldier."
After discharge from the army, Ricketts studied zoology at the University of Chicago. He was influenced by his professor, W.C. Allee, but dropped out without taking a degree. He then spent several months walking through the American south, from Indiana to Florida. He used material from this trip to publish an article in Travel magazine titled "Vagabonding." He returned to Chicago and studied some more at the university."