Stearns Wharf Celebrates its 150th Birthday!

By the edhat staff

Santa Barbara’s iconic Stearns Wharf turns 150 years old on Friday, September 16th. 

Referred to as “Santa Barbara’s front door,” our birthplace of industry will be honored with a grand birthday bash planned for Saturday, October 8. There will be cannon battles with a tall ship, an opera performance, live music, a little history, and a whole lot of family-friendly fun. 

Credit: Edson Smith Photo Collection

Here’s a rundown of events:

11:00 a.m. – Opera Santa Barbara performance

11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Mystic Whaler tall ship exchanging “gunfire” with the Wharf Cannon

12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. – Clam Chowder competition with free tastings. Participants will be eligible to win coupons to the wharf restaurants.

2:00 p.m. – Santa Barbara Yacht Club ceremonial regatta & local band Tequila Mockingbird

4:30 p.m. – local band Doublewide Kings

5:30 p.m. – Santa Barbara historian, Neal Graffy, will emcee the birthday ceremony while regaling the crowd with tales of the Wharf’s colorful past. There will be a brief convocation by local dignitaries followed by cake and a toast. 

7:00 p.m. – Five-minute Fireworks Show!

All activities are free and open to the public thanks in part to generous sponsors: Visit Santa Barbara, Jordano’s and Condor Express.

For more information check out stearnswharf.org.

Credit: Edson Smith Photo Collection

The History of Stearns Wharf

By Neal Graffy

John Peck Stearns Opens the Door to Santa Barbara

At the beginning of the 1870s Santa Barbara was on the cusp of evolving from an adobe town to an American city.  After an absence of nearly a decade, Santa Barbara now had three newspapers, Mortimer Cook established the community’s first bank in October 1871, and the Santa Barbara College was founded in 1869.

But of the utmost importance to Santa Barbara’s future was a visit in the fall of 1871 by Charles Nordhoff.  Nordhoff had journeyed to California via the two-year-old transcontinental railway and was writing about what he found in California for Harpers’s Magazine and other publications.  He consolidated these reports into California: for Health, Pleasure and Residence; A Book for Travellers and Settlers published in 1872.  In chapter 8, Southern California for Invalids, he wrote “Santa Barbara is on many accounts the pleasantest of all the places I have named; and it has an advantage in this, that one may there choose his climate within a distance of three or four miles of the town.  It has a very peculiar situation….Santa Barbara faces directly south…with the sea and lovely islands in front of it and a range of mountains to the north….Santa Barbara temperature is not extreme.”

With all eyes upon her, Santa Barbara was ready to mesmerize, entertain and enthrall visitors – what she didn’t have, was a way in.

Getting to Santa Barbara was not a delightful experience.  Travel by stagecoach had been available since April 1861, but it was a long, uncomfortable, and dusty journey.  The suspension of the stagecoach – such as it was – resulted in the coach swaying to and fro and that sickness, usually reserved for the sea, would often descend upon the land bound occupants.  Train travel was nearly two decades away.  The coastal steamers were the more preferred option for passengers and cargo, but there was a problem here too…getting ashore.  Without a wharf, passengers were brought ashore by the crew in rowboats.  Depending on the waves and skill of the oarsman, people, their belongings, mailbags, and other goods could and would get dumped into the briny.  Larger items, like lumber were simply tossed overboard and floated ashore.

In 1868 a wharf was built at the foot of Chapala Street.  At 500 feet in length though, it barely fulfilled the need as it was too close to the shore for large ships to tie up and if the tide was high or sea was rough it was difficult for passengers to get from the rowboats and launches to the stairs alongside the wharf.    

It fell to John Peck Stearns, a transplant from Vermont to build the door that would open Santa Barbara to the world.

John Peck Stearns (Neal Graffy Collection)

Stearns was born in 1828 and like so many, came to California with the Gold Rush.  However, unlike many of his contemporaries, he ignored the call of the gold and instead taught school, studied and passed the bar and was elected and served two terms as the District Attorney of Santa Cruz County.  He was next appointed as U.S. Assistant Assessor for the division of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties.

Inexplicably, despite a lifetime pursuit of education and law, he sold his law practice and library and moved to Santa Barbara in 1867 to open a lumberyard.

Stearns’ lumberyard was located at the foot of State St.  Not satisfied with having his lumber shipments floated ashore and collected up and down the beach, he offered to extend the nearby Chapala Wharf another 1,000 feet and was turned down.  Undaunted he approached Santa Barbara’s leading philanthropist and businessman, Col .W. W. Hollister, for a $41,000 loan to build a 1,600 foot wharf.  Hollister agreed and the deal was struck with a payment schedule of $500 a month for 7 years.  Despite storm damage and problems with the city Stearns never missed a payment.

Stearns’ longer wharf would allow the coastal steamers to tie up and safely unload cargo and passengers. On September 16, 1872, the Anne Stoffer, a lumber schooner, was the first ship to use the new wharf.  Santa Barbara was now poised to accept the health seekers and tourists that were ready to descend upon her.

Stearns Wharf (Neal Graffy Collection)