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What to Do In Santa Barbara - West Beach, 1904
updated: Mar 13, 2010, 10:30 AM

by Neal Graffy XNGH

A few weeks back I wrote a bit about the Potter Hotel along Santa Barbara's West Beach. I noted that it was not unusual for guests to stay several weeks if not a month or more which generated a number of responses "Hey Neal, what the heck did they do?"

Indeed! No cars, cell phones, gaming devices, internet, radio, television or movies. What the heck did they or even the local populace do to keep from going mad with all the time they had to apparently do absolutely nothing.

As coincidence would have it, I was about to find out.

First I got a call from my friend Jerry Jacobs, the proprietor of the Lost Horizon Bookstore, to "c'mon down and check out a few things I just got in." Jerry usually has a good selection of Santa Barbara books and ephemera and I've been a frequent visitor to his shop for nearly a quarter of a century. A personal request for a shop visit usually means he's come across another great item for my research.

Fifteen minutes later I was holding a 1904 "Guide to the Rides and Trails of Santa Barbara." For twenty-five cents the 52-page guide gave the reader over sixty things to do and places to go in and around Santa Barbara. It contained a map of the city as well as a fold out map covering the coast and mountain ridgeline from Rincon Point to Naples. The publisher, W. W. Osborne, was a relative newcomer to Santa Barbara and had opened his bookstore a few years earlier at 931 State. Osborne's Bookstore would remain a State Street landmark until closing its doors just a few years short of its 90th anniversary.

A few days later I picked up a stack of photos and postcards from a tourist's visit to Santa Barbara, yep, in 1904.

So let's open our guide, get our pictures and this week, let's go to the beach!

The view towards west beach from the Potter front porch.

In 1904, East Beach was an empty, unused stretch of sand. All the beach fun and activities were along West Beach and it had been so since the first bathhouses were established in the 1870s just past the intersection of Castillo and "The Boulevard" (it would be named "Cabrillo" in 1919). The bathhouses were pretty much just simple board and batten structures and by the 1890s an embarrassment to a city that was trying to sell itself to the increasing southern California tourist trade. "Other oceanfront communities have splendid facilities why can't we?" After several failed attempts to privately and publicly secure funding, sea-side salvation was obtained from the United Electric Gas and Power Company.

The name was certainly appropriate. The UEG&PC was started in 1901 when a group of investors bought the Santa Barbara Electric Light Co., the Santa Barbara Gas Co., and the Santa Barbara Consolidated Electric Co. (which ran the electric trolley system) and merged them into the one company.

In a portion of a former swamp about a block up from the beach (the actual site would be in today's Pershing Park just about directly across the street from the Days Inn Motel), they erected a massive power plant. A giant steam engine was installed to produce the power for their trolley system, the city and even Montecito. They needed massive amounts of water for the engine and the nearby Pacific Ocean was the perfect source. To get it there and to get rid of the discharge would give the community a wonderful "pleasure pier" and beautiful bathhouse.

Our Guide tells us that "the Bath House is one of the most beautiful and complete on the coast and contains a plunge, in which the water is tempered to suit the taste of those who do not care for bathing in the surf. Attached to the bath house is a large Amusement Hall, containing bowling alleys, refreshment rooms and other conveniences."

"Los Banos del Mar", opened in the summer of 1901 (note the "Moorish" design and red-tiled roof some 25 years before the ascent of Pearl Chase) and cost the UEG&PC around $40,000. The arched recess on the second floor was a band shell.

In the Amusement Hall there were eight bowling lanes with a gallery for 200 "onlookers", ping pong tables, a billiard room and the amazing "Tonophone" which was a coin-operated electric piano. The building also featured a number of bathing rooms with heated salt or fresh water baths, a laundry for the suits and towels and a roof garden observation deck. It was open from 8 AM to 11 PM on weekdays and 8 AM to 5 PM on Sundays.

A Sunday concert at Plaza del Mar. Castillo Street is in the foreground. At that time, West Cabrillo Boulevard ended at the entrance to the Plaza (lower left).

Plaza del Mar, in front of the bath house, had been put in by the city in the 1890s and this was where a good portion of our local and visiting population went on the weekends and summer evenings. The city band (yes, there was one) led by Cesare La Monica, rotated between afternoon and evening concerts at Alameda Park and Plaza del Mar. The newspapers printed a daily schedule of the location, times, and tunes to be played.

There were two "plunges" inside. A "general plunge" (pictured) and a smaller one for ladies and children. The water was changed every four hours and the salt water pools were heated by exhaust steam from the powerhouse. Nothing went to waste!

To get the water to the powerhouse a 425' pier was built to hold the pipes and in spite of its industrial use was opened to the public as "The Pleasure Pier." A small boat rental business operated at the far end. Note the water from the power house and pools being discharged from the boxed pipe to the right of the stairs. Children often played in and around it. No one died.

In the early 1940s when Cabrillo Boulevard was finally cut through the hill behind the bath house, a small portion was left behind and became fondly known as "Fossil Hill." Standing just to the west of the current Los Banos, it finally succumbed to city bulldozers in 1967 and was replaced by a parking lot.

Where did all the fun go?

Despite being surrounded by and full of water, Los Banos del Mar burned to the ground in the early morning of March 27, 1913. The fire started in the women's dressing room. Heroically, and somewhat ironically, a pool table was saved.

Southern California Edison bought out the United Electric Gas and Power Co. and doubled the size of the powerhouse. In turn, the 6.5 earthquake of June 29, 1925 reduced the size of the powerhouse substantially and it was not rebuilt. The trolley car barns built alongside the powerhouse in 1913 lasted in Pershing Park until the city demolished them in 1972. Edison by the way had built a new bathhouse in 1915, which was replaced by the current Los Banos in 1938. We'll discuss both of those at a later date.

The Pleasure Pier survived both fire and earthquake but was finally felled by the breakwater. The breakwater severely interrupted the natural flow of sand along the coast and caused a large build-up of sand along West Beach which left the little pier high, dry and worthless. It was torn down in 1929.

We'll have "More from 1904" in future columns.

Neal Graffy is a Santa Barbara historian, his book "Street Names of Santa Barbara" is available at Chaucers, Vices and Spices, Santa Barbara Arts and Tecolote Books as well as online at www.elbarbareno.com.

Photos courtesy Neal Graffy collection

Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

JOHN WILEY	2010-03-13 12:52 PM
Fascinating peek into the past. Thanks for sharing. Wonder if anyone took aerial photos back then. ;)
COMMENT 62870	2010-03-13 05:41 PM
Wonderful! I hadn't seen pictures from this era before. I did so love "Fossil Hill" but we never knew it had a name. I just had to climb it any time we were near, and I was very unhappy when it disappeared.
COMMENT 62877P	2010-03-13 07:03 PM
Interesting to consider how few parking places there were (for obvious reasons!) and to consider that the present transportation and planning agendas are to cut back on the number of cars we have parked and by limiting parking places in new construction, to cut back on the number of cars we own.
PATRICK	2010-03-13 08:44 PM
Once again, thanks, Neal!
JOHN WILEY	2010-03-13 11:35 PM
62877P, I noticed how full the bike rack was in that concert photo. I'll bet none of them were locked, either.
COMMENT 62908	2010-03-14 07:56 AM
saloons, cock fighting, brothels, opium dens....
COMMENT 62924P	2010-03-14 09:56 AM
Jerry & Lost Horizons are a treasure.
COMMENT 62938	2010-03-14 11:08 AM
LOVED IT! LOVED IT! Thanks for sharing!
AGENTSME	2010-03-14 11:31 AM
Thank you for sharing.
COMMENT 62984	2010-03-14 05:37 PM
I LOVE this stuff. It's utterly fascinating. Thank you, Neal!
CHERIDIANE	2010-03-16 12:19 PM
Fascinating! Keep on sharing with us, Neal. And Ed.
COMMENT 63951	2010-03-20 09:38 AM
Fabulous Article, Thanks all. I love Lost Horizons. As it turns out there was plenty to do, and it would be wonderful to have some of it back, including the Trolley cars, and the salt water plunges. Yes there were plenty of bikes. Santa Barbara needs bike paths throughout the city, wasting money on the "bulb outs" which besides being a waste , make it extremely dangerous for bikers, so making safe Bike lanes would put the money to better use and encourage more people to give up their cars.
COMMENT 92002	2010-07-23 11:50 AM
I also love this sort of local history -- so interesting! Late comment, but had to add my thanks!

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