History

Two wharves graced the Santa Cruz shore in 1914,
the Municipal Wharf (left) and the Railroad Wharf (right).

It seems as if the Santa Cruz Wharf has been part of the local seascape forever, but it's really the fifth in a line of former wharves that stood between Cowell Beach and Main Street. (Six wharves, if you count the rail connection that was built to connect two of them.) In fact, at two separate times there were three wharves reaching out to the Bay. Each wharf had its own special purpose.

The Potato Wharf-- This really wasn't much of a wharf at all, since it consisted mainly of a wood plank chute that extended from the end of Bay Street, across Cowell Beach, and into the water. But why was it called the Potato Wharf?

During the Gold Rush, there was a severe shortage of potatoes in San Francisco and in the gold mining camps, so Eli Anthony took advantage of the business opportunity by constructing this first wharf. During its time thousands of sacks of potatoes tumbled down the chute to be loaded on waiting rowboats, which then transported the spuds to large sailing ships anchored in deeper water.

Those boom times for potatoes lasted only four years before the market crashed. But cities were growing, and they needed lime for cement. In 1857, Davis and Jordan purchased the Potato Wharf and used it to ship barrels of lime, which was mined primarily from a quarry on the present UCSC campus. With the advent of the Civil War, gunpowder became a moneymaking commodity. The California Powder Works shipped its product via the wharf to the eastern United States, where it ended up in much of the war's artillery. Some remains of the company's original structures still can be found on the Gray Whale Ranch.

By 1867, a local rancher named Henry Cowell purchased the wharf for $100,000 -- or more than a million dollars by today's reckoning. Cowell's company continued the practice of shipping lime from the wharf until the structure was destroyed by a storm on December 31, 1907, at the age of 60. Over time, the remaining pilings were gradually washed to sea until last one was taken by a storm in 1944.

When Steamers visited the wharf...1914.

The Railroad Wharf-- In 1857, while the Potato Wharf was still in use, David Gharkey built himself a wharf to accommodate the railroad. It became a terminal for Santa Cruz-Felton narrow gauge railroad in 1875, with tracks running out over the pier, located just east of the present wharf. Later it was used by the South Pacific Coast Railroad and then by the Southern Pacific Company.

During its 57-year lifetime, the Railroad Wharf was employed to ship millions of board feet of local redwood lumber and hundreds of thousands of tons of fish. Its demise was brought on by the arrival of the present day wharf. But that's getting ahead of the story.

The Powder Mill Wharf-- This was the third wharf to be constructed, and it was located to the east, where Main Street meets the beach. That was in 1865, just at the end of the Civil War. Twelve years later, a connection was built between this wharf and the Railroad Wharf, but that lasted only until 1882, when the South Pacific Coast Railroad removed the link.

By 1890, the California Powder Works abandoned its structure, making it the shortest-lived of the Santa Cruz wharves -- only 25 years in use. The last of its pilings were seen at low tide in 1900.

The Pleasure Pier-- Though it wasn't used for the heavy operations of previous wharves, the Pleasure Pier is fondly remembered as an important part of the Boardwalk adventure. This structure was built in 1906 so passengers could be carried on the Sinaola -- the first of several commercial speedboats on Monterey Bay. The pier also carried water lines for the Plunge, an indoor saltwater swimming pool housed where we now play miniature golf. If you look carefully around the golf course, you can still see the drain gutters! When the Plunge closed in 1960, the Pleasure Pier went with it.

Santa Cruzans gather for the official dedication
of the new wharf...December 5, 1914

The Santa Cruz Wharf-- When the present-day wharf was constructed in 1914, the Railroad Wharf was already 58 years old and suffering from exposure to the elements. The owners of the aging wharf were asked to make repairs, but when they refused, the city decided it was time to build its own. After all, the waters off Cowell's Beach were filling with silt and becoming shallower, so larger ships could no longer dock closer to shore.

Fearing a loss of shipping trade, the City Council ruled that it would finance a new wharf that could meet the commercial needs of the day. Citizens approved a bond issue in the amount of $172,000 to build the wharf, one of California's finest.

It included no shops or restaurants -- only a railroad track, a warehouse, some lockers, and other necessities for ocean trade. But with the success of this new wharf, the old Railroad ceased operation and was finally demolished, leaving only the present-day wharf to serve our city.