Pier History

Ventura's Pier Is Reborn

Perhaps no other landmark in Ventura County better represents the regions early introduction to trade and commerce than the Ventura Pier. Reaching out into the Pacific Ocean towards the Channel Islands, the pier provided the means of importing and exporting large shipments of agricultural and industrial products, thereby making it possible for the region to grow and prosper. In 1993 the pier underwent an ambitious $3.5 million restoration effort funded through a variety of State sources to replace pilings and decking; add fish cleaning facilities, a new snackbar and bait shop, a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and a widened entrance plaza; and upgrade utilities and public amenities such as benches, restrooms and lighting. A grassroots "Pier Into the Future" campaign is presently underway to establish a $1 million endowment fund for the pier. Interest earnings from the fund will be used to support the ongoing preservation of the pier so that visitors of all ages can continue to take advantage of its beauty, history and recreational value for years to come.

A Community Ready To Grow

Historically, the coastline just west of the pier was a popular launching and landing site for the native Chumash Indians' plank canoes called "tomols". It was at the nearby village of Shisholop, meaning "in the mud", that Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo first encountered California Native Americans living in a community of thatched huts at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in 1542. Shisholop was settled about 1,000 A.D. and reached its peak development nearly 500 years later. Long before there was ever a wharf, the Chumash paddled their canoes from Shisholop as they conducted a busy daily trade of fish, shell bead "money", acorns and other goods with other villages along the coast and on the Channel Islands. In the 1860s, the dirt roads going to and from the city of San Buenaventura were covered with throat-choking dust during the dry season and with mud-filled, axle-breaking potholes during the winter months. Since the Ventura and Santa Clara rivers effectively isolated the community on both the north and south when they became filled with raging torrents of water during the rains, and the arrival of the railroad was still 20 years away, passengers and freight had to come to the area predominantly aboard ships. Without a wharf or pier, however, vessels had to anchor offshore where they precariously loaded and unloaded visitors and cargo aboard small barges called "lighters" which frequently could not operate when winds and swells made conditions unsafe.

Construction Begins On The Wharf

Ventura's newspaper, the Ventura Signal, asked "Is it possible that the most flourishing town and region of country on the whole coast is to go still another year without a wharf?" in its May 20, 1871 edition. The newspaper echoed popular sentiment at the time over the loss of import and export business due to the continuing absence of a pier to service the numerous trading ships that chose to sail past the city's unpredictable anchorage on their way to other ports. At a town meeting on May 20, 1871, Joseph Wolfson, an enterprising citizen and owner of one of the small "lighter" barges that carried passengers and freight to and from the ships anchored offshore, presented a proposal along with his father-in-law Juan Camarillo that introduced the idea of building a privately-owned wharf near California Street to benefit the city's residents. The citizenry enthusiastically approved the concept and by March 1872 a $45,000 contract to build the wharf was awarded to R.G. Salisbury, an individual well-known for his pier-building ability who at the time was working on extending Santa Barbara's own wharf. "A wharf at San Buenaventura, so long talked of and so badly needed, is now a fixed fact," announced the Ventura Signal in its March 2, 1872 edition. "The schooner 'Free Trade' arrived here with the first installments of pilings on Monday!" With the initial shipment of lumber, construction was ready to begin on the wharf which was to be 1,200 feet in length (later lengthened to 1,958 feet) and four fathoms, or 24 feet in depth at its deepest point to provide for adequate anchorage for even the largest rrading ships that visited the area. After arrangements were made to bring a massive, 1,900-pound iron pile driver from Santa Barbara by the ship Kalorama, Arcadia Camarillo Wofson broke a bottle of wine against the pilings on May 18, 1872 and proclaimed: "In the name of the people of Ventura County, I dedicate (the construction of) this wharf to the uses of commerce and to the promotion of the agricultural and material interests of this section of the state." Construction began in earnest on the huge project shortly thereafter and with the completion of the wharf, the Ventura Signal proclaimed in its October 5, 1872 issue, "It is a grand improvement upon the old way, and duly appreciated by shippers and travelers."

Commerce Thrives In Ventura

For the community to grow, all materials that couldn't be made locally were brought into the wharf, the new window to the world. The import most often seen being hauled from the schooners by horse-drawn wagons was lumber from Northern California and the Pacific Northwest which made possible the construction and development of San Buenaventura. Other imports included glass, hardware, shingles, coal, kerosene, furniture, toys, sugar, coffee and tea. Local farmers, ranchers and oil men quickly took advantage of the new wharf to export a variety of products. The farmers originally shipped wheat, barley and corn (crops they had traditionally grown in the East), but with the development of hearty hybrid trees that could withstand the local climate they soon turned to oranges and lemons that were in demand from markets in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Lima beans, which became popular in the United States after their introduction from South America, were also eventually exported from the area in bulk, earning San Buenaventura the reputation of "Lima Bean Capitol of the World". Before the arrival of the railroad in 1888, ranchers used the wharf to ship cattle, sheep and hogs to packing houses in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The wharf once featured a long chute to load the hogs and old-timers remember keeping a small boat available to secure animals that jumped the chute and attempted to swim to shore. Much of the commercial success of the wharf can be attributed to the efforts of Captain Robert Sudden who purchased the structure in 1874. A native of Scotland, the former sea captian turned businessman when he arrived in California during the Gold Rush of 1849 and helped organize the Pacific Steamboat Company based in San Francisco. Captain Sudden was responsible for building the first warehouse at Ventura's wharf so farmers could store their goods there before shipping them out on coastal steamers. The warehouse was so large it was used for exhibits during Ventura's first county fair. Until 1917, when they sold controlling interest in the wharf, the Sudden family's determination to make operations there profitable ensured that ships like the S.S. Santa Rosa and S.S. Kalorama frequently loaded and unloaded cargo at the facility. Inspired by the obvious need for a steady supply of lumber to develop the area, Ventura businessmen James Daily and Owen Rodgers built a 105-foot, two-masted schooner on the beach just east of the wharf. The ship was named San Buenaventura after the city's official name and launched in 1876. Typical of the schooners used to carry lumber and goods from Washington and Oregon to Southern California in the late 19th Century, the San Buenaventura sailed for 34 years until it was lost in a storm off Point George, Oregon.

Petroleum Industry Expands

With the establishment of a small facility by George Gilbert near Mission San Buenaventura in 1857, Ventura became the birthplace of commercial petroleum refining in California. In its first year, the refinery produced 400 barrels of the "black gold" using oil collected from rock seepages. Later, Gilbert moved his refining to Ojai and produced lamp oil for the West Coast for two decades. Oil men began exporting barrels of crude oil from the Ventura River area in 1875. South of Santa Paula, chinese laborers hand-dug long tunnels into the hills and collected the seeping crude oil to meet the growing demand for the versatile natural resource. When new, steam-driven equipment was brought in by ship, the drilling of deeper and more productive wells began an oil boom that lasted well into the 20th century. To make exporting of oil more efficient, in 1886 a 40-mile pipeline was contructed to bring it down the Santa Clara River valley directly to storage tanks built next to the wharf where it could be transported by ship at a fraction of the cost of the railroad's expense. By the 1890s, oil had become Ventura's dominant export. The Sespe Oil Company commissioned the world's first oil tanker, the W.L. Hardison named after a part-owner of the vessel and Santa Paula oil pioneer, designed to carry 3,800 barrels of the valuable product. Unfortunately, after only a year in service, the 160-foot tanker caught fire at the wharf on June 25, 1899 and burned in a spectacular series of explosions that rattled windows and lit up the city. Tragedies such as the W.L. Hardison incident and storm and fire damage to Ventura's wharf were all too familiar for coastal residents. In 1874, the schooner Lucy Ann went aground in swells near the wharf while the two steamships Kalorama and Crimea were driven ashore during a spring storm in 1876 (three of Ventura's present-day streets are named in memory of the vessels). During large storm swells in 1914, the wharf was severed in half by the S.S. Coos Bay which was finally forced onto the beach and pounded to pieces by the surf. Although the wharf has been destroyed by nature and man on a variety of different occasions, it was always eventually rebuilt – often stronger and longer than in its previous state – to continue serving in a useful capacity. Starting in the early 1900s, however, larger steam ships began replacing the smaller coastal vessels that once carried most of the local cargo while less costly and more efficient railroad service began giving the shipping industry its first competition. New bridges and highways, rising sand levels that forced oil tankers to take delivery of crude from offshore pipelines, increasing labor costs, a series of strikes and a growing need for larger vessels that required deep harbors also put the once busy working wharf in less demand. When an oil barge cast off the last line from the wharf in 1936, an era of 64 years of the structure's service to the community came to an end and it took on a new role as a recreational pier.