When Santa Cruz Became the West Coast Coney Island

Before I walked on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, I walked around it. From the large parking lot across the street, it looked shabby and almost foreboding. Then I viewed the Boardwalk from the beach and found it rather awe-inspiring -- like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie, or better yet, The Jetsons. Thrill rides towered above me. Periodic screams issued from the mammoth Giant Dipper Roller Coaster. The Ferris wheel started and stopped rhythmically, reminding me of the insides of an old pocket watch, while couples canoodled on the Sky Glider Ski Lift. The beach generated its own sounds. The waves, the birds, the beeping of a lone man's metal detector perhaps striking gold under the sand.

Upon entering the Boardwalk, all these careful, studious observations deserted me, and I immediately felt like an excited and happy ten-year old girl. I couldn't help myself -- I bought twenty-dollars' worth of tickets. I rode the Ski Lift, took pictures of the colorful crowds, and inhaled the enticing mixture of sea air and fried food smells. I rode the Sea Swings, and felt like I was flying out over the grey, chilly ocean. I ate mint-chocolate Dip N' Dots. I played pinball in the dark Casino Arcade and was fascinated by the strange animatronic toys. My jaded, cosmopolitan soul had been sucked into the pleasure of unpretentious, carefree fun, just like the millions of Californians who have visited the Boardwalk for over a century.

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Postcard, Interior of Bathing Pavilion, Santa Cruz, Cal.

The era of beach amusements in Santa Cruz began in 1865, when Santa Cruz pioneer John Leibbrandt opened a bathhouse on the beach, close to the mouth of the San Lorenzo River. The Civil War had just ended, and everywhere people were breathing a sigh of relief, and itching to enjoy themselves. Soon more bathhouses (like Elizabeth Liddell's Long Branch Bathhouse), which offered respectable people a modest way to enjoy the benefits of sea bathing, appeared on the shore. Concessions and other entertainment sprung up, and by 1866, the Daily Alta California was reporting that Santa Cruz will soon be considered and adjudged by all the pleasure-seekers of this land as the ne plus ultra resort area of the Western Coast. The climate is mild and perfectly delicious.

Over the next two decades, the Santa Cruz bathhouse business grew, culminating in the grand opening of the luxurious Miller-Leibbrandt Plunge in 1893. According to the Boardwalk's official history, The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk: A Century by the Sea:

The Miller-Leibbrandt Plunge was a well-appointed two-story structure that included two hundred dressing rooms, a glass-enclosed observatory, a caf with ornate fixtures and fireplaces, and a billiard parlor and card room. The setting was decorated lavishly with palms and other plants, and the pool was heated to a comfortable eighty-three degrees. Best of all the Plunge featured springboards all around the perimeter, and from the ceiling hung a flying trapeze.

No one believed more in Santa Cruz as a tourist destination than a magnetic, brash young showman named Fred Swanton. Swanton, the son of a successful Santa Cruz hotelier and livery owner, believed in what he called the new Santa Cruz, a major tourist destination that would be the West Coast Coney Island. During the 1880s and 90s, Swanton threw himself into a variety of business ventures. He built a large Italianate hotel, invested in new-fangled energy schemes, became manager of the local Opera House, sponsored a baseball team, opened a pharmacy, and founded an electric company. In 1902, he turned his attention to the local tourism industry, and convinced the Southern Pacific Railroad to promote Santa Cruz to their passengers. He bought up the bathhouses (including the Miller-Leibbrandt) along the coast, and formed the Santa Cruz Beach, Cottage and Tent City Corporation to develop the area.

On June 12, 1904, Swanton opened the magnificent Neptune Casino to a blare of music, a blaze of rockets and the boom of bursting bombs. The Moorish-style entertainment palace included a ballroom, a theater, a formal restaurant and the Miller-Leibbrandt plunge. Swanton also constructed a large tent city next to the Casino, offering tourists a place to stay right on the beach. To promote the venture, Swanton traveled tirelessly, in a train provided to him by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Along with town dignitaries and celebrities, he journeyed throughout the Western United States, handing out promotional pamphlets and giving rousing pitches for Santa Cruz at each stop:

Stay around where I am and you'll enjoy yourself When you get there, look me up. I'm great company. There'll be something doing every minute of the day and evening Nothing is tied down in the city and visitors can help themselves.

Swanton promised that there was never a dull moment in Santa Cruz, and on that count he was eerily prophetic.

On June 22, 1906, a fire that had started at a local laundry spread to the Neptune Casino, which was soon reduced to ashes. Within hours, as the ruins still smoldered, Swanton began making plans to rebuild. Less than one year later, on June 15, 1907, the new Casino -- more refined and streamlined -- opened, along with a brand new natatorium and boardwalk. Right before the opening, a reporter tracked down Swanton, who was working at his usual manic pace, as if fired from a Gatling gun. Everything is in operation, Swanton told the reporter hurriedly, booths, miniature railway, Topsy Turvy, Happy Hooligan, down the Boardwalk cottages all finished, band playing, everything conducive to a good time.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

Promptly at 8:30 P.M. manager Fred W. Swanton pressed the button, and as if by magic the electric currents were released and in an instant thousands of lights

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