History
The first inhabitants of the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes were Native Americans of the Chumash tribe, whose settlements were noticed by early Spanish maritime explorers. However, Europeans did not travel through the Dunes themselves until Monday, September 4, 1769. These explorers were members of Don Gaspar de Portolà's overland expedition. While staying in the Dunes, the explorers shot a skinny bear by the shores of what is now called Oso Flaco Lake. After eating the bear, two of the explorers became sick. The skinny bear had been poisoned by the Chumash who, as a means of protection, often incapacitated dangerous wildlife by feeding them tainted meat. This incident resulted in the lake's name: Oso Flaco or "Skinny Bear."
In 1923, the epic movie The Ten Commandments directed by Cecil B. DeMille, was filmed on the Dunes. At the end of production, the massive sets reproducing ancient Egypt were dismantled and buried on the site to prevent reuse. They are still buried there today, and have been the target of various schemes for excavation for decades. Some artifacts have been recovered and are on display at The Dunes Visitor's Center, while others may be seen from time to time as the dunes shift.
From the 1920s until the 1940s, a group of mystics, nudists, artists, writers, and hermits known as the "Dunites" inhabited the Dunes. They believed that the Dunes were a center of creative energy and even published a magazine called "The Dune Forum." At the same time, oil companies were buying up Dune land and in 1948, oil was discovered in the Dunes. Unocal, an oil company, began operating the Guadalupe Oil Field in the 1950s. Over the course of the next forty years, Unocal leaked 18 million gallons of petroleum under the Dunes. In 1994, the company publicly recognized the spill and began cleaning up the 2,700-acre (11 km2) site, which is located in San Luis Obispo County immediately north of the Santa Barbara County line.
Starting in the 1970s, measures were taken to protect the natural environment at the Dunes. One of the biggest changes was the restriction of OHVs to the designated Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. This allowed for the other areas of the Dunes to undergo restoration efforts by conservation groups. The process of dune restoration continues into the present.
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)