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Ricky Blake, a California-based artist and surf historian, has spent the last number of years going down the rabbit hole of finding nearly 100-year-old surf photographs from all kinds of sources. His journey to archive waves from bygone eras has unearthed fascinating visuals of how California used to be. Los Angeles had a Superbank, Long Beach once tubed, and the coastline has been altered forever. –Ed

I’ve been interested in the history of California and surfing since I can remember, and I like to connect the two together. Sometimes history can provide insight into how things are today. The pioneers and craftsmen and legends that brought us to this day should be honored, and the coastline and surf spots that have been altered throughout time should also be remembered. God willing, the photos will last forever. And therefore, so shall the stories. — Ricky Blake

Photo: Eyre Powell Chamber of Commerce Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library

Long Beach has gone through so many heavy changes that fascinated me. The surf was always good and there were all these historical stories about the destruction that the waves caused. I randomly found this photo with no year or any info, and I figured out the time period based on the distinct architecture and the absence of Rainbow Pier, which was a major tourist attraction in the early 1900s. This photo shows the second version of the pier — check out the wood siding, it’s already falling apart. The elephants on the beach are most likely there because the Cyclone Roller Coaster and Pike Amusement zone are right next door. The pier got demolished by the surf in 1934. As for that bombing left, surf riders probably didn’t want to try it on the planks they were riding at the time.

Photo: Ron Church/courtesy Tani Church

For years these bluffs were a detailed research point for me, and one of the reasons I went down into the endless rabbit hole of historical photo searches on the Internet. My dad used to talk about riding perfect, glassy waves at Dana Point Cove. Severson had one great shot of the place, and my grandfather had another taken from the other direction, so I always wondered, “What the heck happened?” Come to find out, not many people took photos of these now-extinct bluffs. Then one day, I was working on my Facebook page — “Historic Dana Point Surf Break” — when Ron Church’s daughter Tani messaged me saying she wanted to share some never-used photos that her dad took of Doheny to Dana if I’d like to use them for my page. I immediately responded, “Yes, please!” and she sent me test prints.

What’s really amazing is the sheer distance between Dana Cove and where the Doheny surfbreak is today. You can see three points in the distance. The first two are now demolished, and the modern-day jetty begins where that first point juts out. The second point was called San Juan Point, or Princess Point, and the surf would break all around this area, including a left on the other side called Meepees. The third point is Dana Point Headlands. What most people don’t realize is, before development of the Dana Point Harbor and breakwaters started in 1966, west swells would sneak into Doheny. The jetty and breakwater now block those swells.

Photo: Eyre Powell Chamber of Commerce Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library

In the early days of surfing, this legendary surf spot was considered the best in all of California for size and conditions. The setup was a breakwater built to direct the LA River water flow straight out to sea while protecting the Naval shipyard directly on the other side of the jetty. This created a sandbar which produced a backwards wedge effect, and then another sandbar right point a long distance from shore. There was a submarine canyon just offshore and, being in the San Pedro Harbor, it created a swell magnet to this exact spot, which faced south, so the San Pedro hills and Palos Verdes peninsula blocked the prevailing winds. A few aerial photos have been coming out recently, and after hours of searching, sometimes gems appear like those with the Naval Pacific Fleet they were sent to Pearl Harbor and met their ultimate fate. This photo is hard to believe, because the scale is just massive. The waves are really big and the distance to shore is incredible. The old-timers would tell stories of 20-foot waves — that if Huntington was three-foot, Flood Control would be twice that or more — and with this photo, we can see now that they weren’t exaggerating. 

Photo: Bob Plunkett, Ernest Marquez Photograph Collection of the Huntington Library

The raw beauty of the Rancho in summertime, one of the natural wonders of the world. Only a small dirt horse trail led through Arch Rock, traversing other landmarks that scaled the edge of the landscape to this ultimate, desolate point. Nobody was surfing. Imagine being Tom Blake or Sam Reid a whole 20 years later, arriving to this view of the waves peeling in Malibu-technicolor. It’s one of those mythic surf tales for the ages: a natural surf paradise created in the perfect location, angled just right for wind and swell. A few other spots like this were also created along the coast, seemingly just to produce a glassy, secluded, perfect point wave. Most of them are now gone due to the explosion of development (Castillo Point-Santa Barbara, Dana Point, Corona Del Mar, Flood Control). But this point was far away from the big city and hard to get to, so it was destined for fame, idolatry and a place in the lexicon of the California dream/nightmare, epitomizing how humans react and continue to struggle with paradise.

Photo: Dick Whittington Photography Collection, USC Digital Library

Another photo came with this submission that showed flapper girls circa 1920s lounging on the beach. In this one, though, it looks to me like a group of developers were going on an outing and staking a claim to building on this site. In the distance is the surf splendor around untouched Dana Point Bluffs — check out the beautiful right peeling into Capistrano. Historical research proves that the surf used to flow all the way to these bluffs in the days before the railroad.

Photo: Los Angeles Public Library

I found this photo with three others without any location provided. Many people thought it was the East Coast. It was a fun investigation. I matched the pier and the buildings to the Pine Avenue Pier zone, so this must have been a publicity shot for Long Beach back then. The other photos show Duke hitting golf balls while surfing a wave (or at least swinging the club) and while standing on his board in the sand. The pier was in even worse shape at that time, which tells me it’s getting closer to 1934, when it fell apart in roaring Long Beach surf.

Photo: Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Whittier College, Regents of the University of California

There are some historic aerial photos on websites that can take you directly back in time. This was the time period when Duke Kahanamoku considered Corona Del Mar his favorite surf spot in California, and you can see the setup here. The Santa Ana River used to only exit from this location, which created a much larger sandbar, especially back when the river flowed free and un-dammed. Many legendary surfers hung out here: Tom Blake, Pete Peterson, Whitey Harrison, Blackie August, Doc Paskowitz… Check out the Wedge jetty and how they built a mini-extension. They must have done that to try and stop those big ol’ Wedge peaks. Many old aerial photos show the jetty destroyed right where the wave bursts against the rocks.

Photo: Public domain from Los Angeles Public Library

Dead Man’s Island is a real-life, swashbuckling, nautical tale of death, mutiny and piracy right in Southern California — a legendary place where they buried dead sailors and a mutinied captain. After reading excerpts from the novel Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, where he describes waves that would wrap around this island and break as tall as the trees, I found so many photos. Dead Man’s Island was out on the point of San Pedro Bay and an important landmark for sailors to safely enter the bay before it was taken out in 1928 to make way for a widened harbor entrance. I found an old newspaper article describing the removal of the island along with photos showing skeletons of salty sailors of yore. One still had a noose around its neck.

Photo: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives

This amazing photo showing the debris of the destroyed Pine Avenue Pier came with the description: ‘Raging seas wreck pier and undermine homes, seven periled in razing of edifice and children marooned by waves; boat crushed, roads flooded’ Los Angeles Times, 6 Sept. 1934. Huge groundswells swept the debris toward shore after demolishing the structure and periling the lives of its occupants, who escaped by running along the disintegrating structure to shore. The photographer must’ve been standing on a part of the dilapidated pier to get this shot. Dangerous. Just past the Cyclone Racer Roller Coaster would’ve been Flood Control. The waves must’ve been bombing on the outside and just reeling along that historic sandbar.

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