Michael Whitcomb also places it in Carmel-by-the-Sea: His assailant was Jose Eturo, A Chileno who shared the house with Redwing at Santa Rita and First Ave. That article, titled “Tortilla Flat Affray” told how Andrew Gomez, popularly known as “Redwing,” a swarthy native of Carmel, was struck by a knife in a late night tussle. '…an article in The Pine Cone should settle once and for all where Steinbeck got the name “Tortilla Flat” for his story of that name. The house of Gomez is further identified: At Santa Rita and First the Gomez house, which stood until September, 1941, is said to have provided the background for Steinbeck’s “Tortilla Flat.”' - Ariss (1948). One cabin belonged to Manuel Artellan and the other to Frank. Here, along Monterey Street…were three cabins, one of which was older than Carmel City. 'The broad field bounded roughly by First and Third Avenues, Carpenter Street and the boundary of the Hatton Ranch, already had been named “Tortilla Flat” by the mail stage drivers. Others have placed it in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Only about 15 shacks bordered the street.' Behind the section rise towering pines which one character in the novel said he did not like to listen to. Johnson street now runs past some cottages left from the era described in the novel. 'Tortilla Flat was a small section, even in older days, perched overlooking a canyon above the city. Monty Hellam, police judge in Monterey from 1933 until 1953, is quoted as saying that: These are: Iris Canyon, near Monterey Peninsula College, where the last of the “Paisanos” lived the west end of Johnson Street by the American Legion Hall the Deer Flat area on Johnson Street, a lane that skirts Monterey Memorial Park New Monterey on the bay side from Huckleberry Hill near the Presidio and the area at the top of the steep hill above Cannery Row, mainly Jessie Street between David and Prescott. '.There are a number of sites thought to be the area Steinbeck called Tortilla Flat. From Monterey County Place Names, Donald Thomas Clark, Carmel Valley, 1991, quoted here with permission from the publisher:

Tortilla flat recreation site