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.
The waterfront made the city famous. A mile-long wharf served as Los Angeles's port of call into the early 1900s, before San Pedro took the harbor trade, and a string of amusement piers drew the crowds along the bay. Of them all, the 1909 Santa Monica Pier is the survivor — the last of its kind on the north bay, joined in 1916 by the adjacent Pleasure Pier and crowned in 1922 by the Looff Hippodrome, whose hand-carved carousel still turns and is listed on the National Register. Generations have come for the same things: the rides and the lights at the end of the boards, the long beach on either side, and the Pacific going pink at the close of the day.
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.
