Seacliff State Beach is a state beach park on

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles (120 km), accessible via California S ...

, in the town of Aptos,

Santa Cruz County, California Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Sa ...

. It is located off Highway 1 on State Park Drive, about 5 miles (8 km) south of Santa Cruz. The beach is most known for the

concrete ship Concrete ships are built primarily with ferrocement (reinforced concrete) hulls, reinforced with steel bars. This contrasts against more traditional materials, such as pure steel or wood. The advantage of ferrocement construction is that materials ...

SS ''Palo Alto'' lying in the water. North of Seacliff State Beach is New Brighton State Beach.

History

The beach was originally home to the

Ohlone The Ohlone ( ), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the l ...

people. Spanish missionaries established the

Mission Santa Cruz Mission Santa Cruz (Spanish: ''La Misión de la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz'', lit. The Mission of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) is a replica Spanish Californian mission in Santa Cruz, California. Located on the San Lorenzo River floodp ...

about eight miles west of here. In 1821, when Mexico gained independence from Spain, the area was divided up into land grants. The area of the beach was a part of the

Rancho Aptos Rancho Aptos was a Mexican land grant in present day Santa Cruz County, California given in 1833 by Governor José Figueroa to Rafael Castro. The grant on the Monterey Bay was immediately downcoast of his sister, Martina Castro's Rancho Soquel ...

grant to Rafael Castro in 1833. Castro worked with

Claus Spreckels Claus Spreckels (July 9, 1828 – December 26, 1908) was a German-born American industrialist in California and Hawaii, during the Kingdom of Hawaii, kingdom and Republic of Hawaii, republican periods of the islands' history. He founded or was i ...

to establish the Castro-Spreckels wharf. The beach soon became a successful shipping port. The logging industry also thrived here with the local

coast redwood ''Sequoia sempervirens'' ()''Sunset Western Garden Book,'' 1995: 606–607 is the sole living species of the genus '' Sequoia'' in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly treated in Taxodiaceae). Common names include coast redwood, coast ...

trees. The port facilitated major trade with the

Kingdom of Hawaii The Hawaiian Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian:

ɛ ɐwˈpuni həˈvɐjʔi Latin epsilon or open E (majuscule: Ɛ, minuscule: ɛ) is a letter of the extended Latin alphabet, based on the lowercase of the Greek letter epsilon (ε). It was introduced in the 16th century by Gian Giorgio Trissino to represent the pronunc ...

, was an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country from 1795 to 1893, which eventually encompassed all of the inhabited Hawaii ...

. In 1838, King

Kamehameha III Kamehameha III (born Kauikeaouli) (March 17, 1814 – December 15, 1854) was the third king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name was Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula K ...

requested that Mexican

vaqueros The ''vaquero'' (; , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in what what is today Mexico (then New Spain) and Spanish Florida from a method brought to the Americ ...

from California travel to Hawaii to teach

Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiʻi was settled at least 800 years ago by Polynesians ...

how to manage herds of wild cattle. Seacliff became a popular place to recruit vaqueros, who were known as

paniolo A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

s by the Hawaiians. In the 1850s,

Thomas Fallon Thomas Fallon (1825–1885) an Ireland, Irish-born Californian politician, best known for serving as 10th Mayor of San Jose, California, Mayor of San Jose. Fallon remains a controversial figure in San Jose, California, San Jose's history, owing ...

acquired part of the beach and turned it into a resort, which he named "New Brighton", in honor of his favorite seaside resort in England. In the 1920s, after Claus Spreckels' death, sections of the beach were developed into the Seacliff Park and the Rio Del Mar Country Club. In 1930, the first California state grant for preserving land was granted for the beach and, in 1931, it became a state beach.

SS ''Palo Alto''

The beach's most notable feature is the World War I

SS ''Palo Alto'' formerly lying at the end of a wooden

pier A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of water and usually juts out from its shore, typically supported by piling, piles or column, pillars, and provides above-water access to offshore areas. Frequent pier uses include fishing, b ...

. The unfinished ship was hauled to Seacliff Beach in 1930 by the Cal-Nevada Company, beached, and turned into an amusement center, complete with a ballroom, a cafe, a 4-foot heated pool, and carnival booths. The company went bankrupt after two seasons and the ship was stripped. It is now permanently closed to the public. In the 2016–2017 storm season, a section of the ship overturned, and the pier was damaged. During the 2022–2023 storms, the ship was further broken down and the pier was extensively damaged, with the part closest to the ship being destroyed. Demolition of the pier began on March 20, 2023 and has since been completed.

Animal and plant life

The beach is home to many types of birds and marine life, including mussels, ocean worms, sea stars, sea anemones, barnacles, rock crabs, harbor seals, anglers, flounder, mackerel, halibut, lingcod, perch, cabezon, jacksmelt, steelhead, anchovy, bocaccio (tomcod), kingfish, dark seabirds, sea lions, dolphins, sea otters, whales, and great white sharks. The Palo Alto serves as a main place for marine life.

Recreation

Seacliff includes RV facilities, picnic tables, and fire pits. It is also a popular place for surfing and fishing.

External links

*
Seacliff State Beach
Official website

References