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.
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.
