The wooden cabin at Whalers Cove is the one building the state kept when it cleaned up Point Lobos after buying it in 1933. Chinese fishermen built it in the 1850s using local pine and redwood. The floor was packed earth at first, and the floor joists rest on six whale vertebrae set on granite blocks. About ten cabins once stood around the cove.
In 1851 a Chinese sailor, Quock Junk, ran aground at Point Lobos and was rescued by Ohlone people; he was later joined by other families who became the point’s first commercial fishermen. Portuguese whalers from the Azores arrived in 1862, and the Carmel Whaling Company operated until 1879.
The cabin is now a museum. During World War II the Army used it as headquarters for coastal defense.