Go out with the family ad-ventura-ing
This issue we take you to ten different, hand-picked, camping destinations in Ventura County. Make sure you pick up the latest copy to find out what they are and all the other little details about them.
The Ventura Pierwas constructed in 1872 at a price of $45,000 by R.G. Salisbury (whom also did the original extension to the Santa Barbara Wharf). The schooner Free Trade brought in the first pilings and the ship Kalorama brought in a 1900-pound iron pile driver to set the pilings. It was originally meant to be 1200 feet in length but ended up being 1958 feet in length and four fathoms (24 feet) deep at the end of the pier.
The pier was constructed to be a working wharf, importing and exporting goods and that was its main function from 1872 until 1936. The large warehouse used for holding goods was so large that it started being used for exhibits which became the County Fair.
This pier has its own special place in history.
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 there in 1542. Shisholop was settled about 1000 A.D.
There was a 105-foot, two-masted Schooner constructed on the beach just east of the pier that was named San Buenaventura after the city. It carried lumber and goods from Washington and Oregon to Ventura until 1910 when it was lost in a storm off Point George, Oregon.
The Sespe Oil Company commissioned the worlds first oil tanker, the "W.L. Hardison” in 1898 which started its service at this pier. This pier also unfortunately saw the 160-foot oil tanker become the first to catch fire and burn in a spectacular series of explosions on June 25, 1899.
Tragedies such as the W.L. Hardison along with storm and fire damage to the Ventura Wharf/Pier have been familiar to the pier. In 1874 the schooner Lucy Ann went aground in swells near the pier. In 1876 two steamships the Kalorama and the Crimea were driven ashore during a spring storm. In 1914 large storm swells caused the S.S. Coos Bay to sever the pier in half and then forced the S.S. Coos Bay onto the beach and pounded it to pieces.
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 its new role as a recreational pier that we enjoy today.
The pier upgrades happened in 1993 when the pier underwent an ambitious $3.5-million restoration effort. It went through another $2.2-million upgrade to steel-reinforced pilings and the square deck at the end in 1998.
Individuals and businesses can obtain a plank "Grant Deed” for donations to the pier (starting at $1000). These donations go to keep the $1 million endowment fund to maintain, enhance and preserve the pier via the Ventura County "Pier into the Future" organization.
