The twentieth century layered on more. The 1920s brought a 'Gold Coast' of beach-resort hotels and the first Hollywood money to the sand; in 1921 Donald Douglas founded Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, and in 1924 the U.S. Army's first-ever round-the-world flight set out from the city's Clover Field — an aviation chapter that ran here until the 1970s. Muscle Beach built a national fitness culture on the south-end sand in the 1930s and '40s; the Third Street Promenade reinvented downtown for walking in 1989; and the pier's solar Ferris wheel arrived in 1996. Through all of it the bluffs of Palisades Park kept their Moreton Bay figs and their Camera Obscura, looking out over the same bright water.
Today Santa Monica is California's beach and the end of America's road. Its story runs from the Tongva coast and the senator's 1875 resort, through the amusement-pier era and the founding of an aircraft company, to the Route 66 terminus that still draws travelers to the edge of the Pacific. Our Santa Monica designs gather that identity into wearable form — the bear and star, the pier, and the End of the Trail. Santa Monica, California: where Route 66 meets the sea.
Why People Visit Santa Monica
Santa Monica rewards visitors with a rare mix — a historic amusement pier, the western end of Route 66, miles of beach, and a walkable downtown, all on a bright Pacific bay. People come for the pier and the End of the Trail, for sunsets off the bluffs of Palisades Park, and for an easy California beach day with a long history behind it. It is iconic, friendly, and unmistakably Southern California.
