History
The beach was originally home to the Ohlone people. Spanish missionaries established the Mission Santa Cruz here. In 1821, when Mexico broke away from Spain the land was divided up into land grants. The area of the beach was a part of the Rancho Aptos grant to Rafael Castro in 1833. Castro worked with Claus Spreckels to establish the Castro-Spreckels wharf. The beach soon became a successful shipping port. The logging industry also thrived here with the local redwood trees.
The port facilitated major trade with the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. In 1838, King Kamehameha III requested that Mexican vaqueros from California travel to Hawaiʻi to teach Hawaiians how to manage herds of wild cattle. Seacliff became a popular place to recruit vaqueros, who were known as paniolos by the Hawaiians.
In the 1850s, Thomas Fallon acquired part of beach and turned it into a resort. He named this new resort "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.
Read more about this topic: Seacliff State Beach
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