Storms, politics, and activism: The history of the Santa Monica pier

For more than a century, the Santa Monica Pier has weathered through storms, private development and a lack of funds.

It was built in 1909 to run sewage into the ocean and then developed into an amusement park concept in 1916 during the heyday of pleasure piers, which populated coastal towns nationwide. Today, it's one of the few that remain.

Weathering through hazards

By the 1960s, the pier was no longer viable for Santa Monica and City Manager Perry Scott was tasked with turning it around. Voters rejected a plan to extend the pier to a man-made island with a resort hotel, a convention center and other amenities.

But Scott didn’t give up, according to Santa Monica Pier Corporation executive director James Harris, who wrote Santa Monica Pier: America’s Last Great Pleasure Pier. A revised edition is out May 21, and looks at the history and lore of the pier.

"He went out and sourced a developer to come in and pay for the project, which then only needed the city council's approval," he said in an interview with LAist's daily news program, AirTalk. "So, the city council saw the problem solved. This makes the pier more viable, and we don't even have to pay for it."

However, activists, bartenders and fishermen fought back against the city and helped create the Pier Restoration Corporation to maintain it.

Soon after, a series of El Niño storms severely battered the pier in 1983, bringing 10-foot waves that swallowed the lower fishing deck.

The city quickly sent a crane to the west end of the pier to clean up the damage. But then another storm came in shortly afterward, knocking the crane into the ocean and a third of the pier.

Reimagining the pier

The storms gave the city of Santa Monica a chance to improve and revive the pier, something that the city had been attempting to do that since the 1960s.

The city had concrete structures added for stability. The new structures supported the incoming restaurants, retail stores and the beginnings of an amusement park, which opened in 1996.

Harris said the city began to host concerts and events to draw people to the pier. Cirque du Soleil had their first touring show at the pier.

"Really, the pier became known as an events venue and then an amusement park," Harris said.

Next year, the city plans to start construction on the pier bridge, what some people call the pier ramp, which will take people from Palisade Park to the pier and the beach. That project is expected to be completed before the 2028 Olympics.

A different world

Harris said the pier's first heyday was in the 1940s just after World War II, when paddle boarding began to take off. By the late 1980s, Harris said the pier brought in 2 million visitors, mostly summer tourists.

Today, Harris estimates the pier draws in between 11 and 14 million people annually.

When asked why people keep coming to the Santa Monica Pier, he said it's an escape.

"You feel like you're in a different world, even though the city is just a block or two behind you," Harris said. "And the further you get out west on that pier, the more freedom you feel, the more of an escape you feel, and I think that's what it is that really keeps drawing people to it."