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.
Santa Monica as a town dates to 1875, when a Nevada silver senator, John P. Jones, and a ranching colonel, Robert Baker, laid it out as a seaside resort — a 'Pearl of the Pacific' they hoped would become Los Angeles's great port. Jones gave the city the long ribbon of bluff-top land that became Palisades Park, still its finest public space; the railroad arrived the same year; and the town incorporated in 1886. The port ambitions faded — San Pedro won that prize — but the resort stuck, and Santa Monica became the place Los Angeles went to the beach.
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.
