The Coast Highway, now Carpinteria Avenue, was once a service station hot spot. Motorists heading up or down the coast flowed through town and often stopped to fuel up on gas, food and a short rest. In “Images of America: Carpinteria,” authors describe the photo above with the following: “Th…

El Sereno Motel at 3250 Via Real once offered pleasant accommodations for travelers passing through town or stopping over for a polo match at the adjacent Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club. Eventually the motel was converted into apartments before being razed for a neighborhood development.

Editor’s Note: This piece expands on “C.D. Hubbard and his lemon legacy,” which ran in CVN Vol. 26, No. 19. 

 The author and artist Barnaby Conrad – a Rincon Point resident from 1973 until his death in 2013 – credited two towering figures of 20th-century American literature with molding his career. He spent five months living and working with one of them but couldn’t elicit even a postcard out of t…

Let’s travel back in time to the Rincon of the 1970s and ‘80s. 

Editor’s Note: A version of this article ran in CVN Vol. 26, No. 45. The 2023 Carpinterian of the Year will be named at the upcoming 65th Annual Community Awards Banquet on Saturday, April 6, 2024.

[Editor’s note: A version of this article was run in CVN Vol. 26, No. 18.]

On two Saturdays in the summer of 1936, children and horses from the Carpinteria area converged on the beach at Rincon Point for the Rincon Handicap Horse Races Bates Sweepstakes, organized by 15-year-old Bobby Bates. 

As last month’s article about Rincon Point during the surf film heyday wrapped (CVN Vol. 30, No. 20), Zachary Eichert made contact in connection with his own film project. If that surname sounds familiar, you’re on the right track; Zach’s labor of love is a 20-minute film about his uncle Joh…

s voters go to the polls next week for local elections, Carpinterians can look back on campaigns of yore. The internet was a far off tool, and television was still in its early years, so Republican candidate Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign against Democrat Hubert Humphrey relied on old fashion…

Little old Carpinteria boasted the South Coast’s most popular airfield during the early days of flight. Before the construction of Santa Barbara Airport on Goleta slough and pasture lands in the 1930s, Carpinteria’s air strip was the hot spot for landings and takeoffs. Local air shows, like …

James and Pearl Slaybaugh started the process of creating a racetrack on their Carpinteria Bluffs property in 1946. A year later in 1947, their dream was a reality. Races were held on Monday nights, and the roar from the track could be heard from the Rincon to Old Town. Midget cars were feat…

During Santa Barbara’s rowdy 1860s, according to historian James C. Williams, nearly two-thirds of residents were male – mostly born out of state, mostly young. A visitor in 1861 said that it was “so notorious a place for horse stealing and robbery that we have kept guard since we have been here.” 

Rincon has its share of film credits. From the early home movies shot by Robert Bates (1920s) to the monstrously terrible “Welcome to Arrow Beach” (1974), the Point is not camera shy. 

Long before patio dining came to 5096 Carpinteria Ave., the property across from Maple Avenue housed the McLean family, including a solemn Baptist minister and his son, a real estate agent with a photography hobby that landed him a spot in Life Magazine.

The holiday season has slowed and Carpinteria is entering a quieter time of year. Not quite as quiet, however, as anytime in 1916, as evidenced by this photo. Sleepy little Linden Avenue, pictured looking toward the beach from today’s Carpinteria Avenue, included the Presbyterian Church on t…

The Rincon brickyard may have operated for only a decade, but its afterlife has lasted for nearly a century and shows no sign of slowing down. Pastel-colored bricks from the 1920s and 1930s continue washing ashore at Rincon Point, where collectors lie in wait.

With our recent strong surf still ringing in our ears, let’s look back at Rincon’s most famous swell. Mention “the old days” to longtime Rincon surfers, and you’re likely to get an earful about the swell of 1969. Who cares about ‘69’s Woodstock or the moon landing? The giant waves that storm…

As basketball season heats up at Carpinteria High School, Coastal View News has a snapshot of the program’s past. Here, in 1925, Carpinteria High School students scramble for the ball on a court built alongside the school. For a short time, the high school was located in the building picture…

Winter, spring, summer and fall, Santa spent many happy seasons welcoming travelers to Carpinteria. The street that eventually became Santa Claus Lane began its famous history as a segment of the old coastal highway, a portion of which was purchased by the McKeon family in 1948. The McKeons …

Early in the 20th century, residents of Santa Barbara raised tens of thousands of dollars for a road project in Ventura County: the Rincon causeways.

Let’s visit 1950s Rincon Point to enjoy the sandy beach, waves and – perhaps best of all – a lack of crowds. Guiding us are the memories of Dick Barr (b. 1930), a lifelong Santa Barbaran (save for a stint or two in the Army and down south). Dick was a member of a close-knit group of surfing …

Gerrie Bauhaus, daughter of Hugo and Millie Bauhaus, royally cruises along in a 1970s Carpinteria Christmas Parade in her princess finery. Bauhaus passes Coastal Liquor in the 4800 block of Carpinteria Avenue.  

Children take a break from their romp around the maypole to pose for a photograph during a May Day celebration held in Franklin Canyon in what is believed to be the 1880s. 

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Carpinterians fought with the state about the future of Rincon Point. As is often the case in California, this fight about the future took the form of a fight about roads – specifically, U.S. 101. 

Robert W. Bates took this photo near La Conchita, then called Punta Gorda, probably in the 1920s. On the back, he wrote: “This is the job I am handling after every rain!” Bates and his family owned the neighboring Rincon del Mar Ranch.

A gorgeous book documenting a key moment in our local surf history has appeared: Jimmy Metyko’s “Shaping Surf History: Tom Curren, Al Merrick, California 1980-1983” (Rizzoli, $55). Its 304 pages, coffee table size and many, many lush color and black and white photos dripping with saltwater a…

Walnut hulling was a common sight around Carpinteria in the town’s earliest days. Russel Heath introduced the nut to the valley in 1860 after buying it from the Wolfskill family of Los Angeles, according to Images of America’s “Carpinteria.” “Carpinteria lore has it that, for a pair of high …

Perhaps more striking than what this aerial photo from 1972 contains is what it is missing. The orchard on the upper right corner is now Eucalyptus and Manzanita streets, flanked by tract homes, with Heath Ranch Park alongside. The orchard along the left edge of the photo is now part of the …

In 1929, Edward H. Bates spent $2,505 on materials to build a cottage on Rincon Point. It’s still standing 94 years later.

Longtime waterman, surfer, and all-around “good person” Billy Meng passed away on Sept. 15 in Santa Barbara. Meng is a key figure in Rincon’s surfing history – stories involving him are both colorful and plentiful. 

Longtime Carpinterians allude to the old days like proud scholars of ancient history, Lea Boyd wrote in a 2014 Carpinteria Magazine feature.

Circa 1930s, a fire truck passes the Presbyterian Church on the corner of Ninth Street and Linden Avenue. The Carpinteria Union High School Fire District was in its infancy at the time. Later renamed Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Protection District, the agency was initially manned mostly by v…

In the late 19th century, an Eastern physician might prescribe camphor, opium, carbolic acid or a one-way ticket to Southern California. Climatotherapy, as it was called, held that an especially healthful climate (“salubrious” was the favored term) could cure asthma, tuberculosis, rheumatism…

Telling the story of Rincon’s most iconic surfboards is a pathway into the Point’s long surf history. To generate a list of iconic boards we polled a number of surf cognoscenti for their opinions on “the” most important Rincon surf craft. In the interests of space, we’ll break the boards of …

Carpinteria ladies in the early 1900s hone their tennis skills on a makeshift court. This lineup of sporty gals includes Catherine Bailard, Myrtle Bailard, Francis Ellery and Lila McLean. See this week's Sports Section for a “then and now” comparison of racquet-wielding female athletes.

In August 2014, three kids – from left, Emma Whittenton, Ben Terry and Hazel Dugré – of then-Coastal View News staffers Kris Whittenton, Dan Terry and Peter Dugré headed off to their Carpinteria kindergarten classrooms. Fun photos of the three ran in the Aug. 14, 2014, Back-to-School issue o…

Sporting sunglasses and a goofy grin, Baunz the all-American dog was the face of California postcards across the U.S. in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s – as many locals may recall – until his death at age 11. 

The typical eruption may resemble a baking-soda science fair project more closely than Mount Vesuvius, but Rincon has its own miniature “volcano” – a cluster of fissures high on the cliff between Rincon Point and La Conchita that sometimes emit smoke and, according to a few observers, the oc…

In Rincon’s sandy pantheon of surf legends, Kevin Sears stands out as one of the greatest. 

Though the city of Carpinteria’s population in the early 20th century may have been small, its impressive welcome sign was huge. Gracing the western end of town near Santa Claus Lane, the sign, depicting an open history book complete with quill pen, welcomed motorists and visitors with a les…

At the recent 95th year anniversary celebration of the Alcazar Theatre, Alcazar board member Karen Graf reviewed its long history. Sitting in the audience listening brought back memories of the 90th anniversary when I was on the theatre board, and we remodeled the marquee and the lobby. 

At Yale University’s Beinecke Library, you’ll find the papers of Walt Whitman, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein and James Baldwin – as well as the papers of a 20-year resident of Rincon Point named Silvia Dobson. Dobson wrote novels and poems, but she’s remembered chiefly for her association wi…

Let’s dive for a minute deep into Rincon Point’s surfing history. One of the most iconic photographs from the Point’s early surf history is the marvelous scene reprinted here to the right, capturing exuberant surfers and friends. The photograph dates to 1951, and the scene is Rincon Cove. Be…

From left, Joe Wullbrandt and Bass Mackey sit in a Model T outside of what is now Carpinteria Middle School, in 1937. 

Editor’s note: This piece by local historian Dr. Jim Campos was originally published in celebration of the Alcazar Theatre’s 90th birthday in 2018. 

Editor’s Note: This piece was submitted by Carpinterian Doug Galati for CVN’s Throwback section. In this article, Galati recalls the time he saw Rincon talent George Greenough surfing along the coast.

One of the biggest movie stars of the early 1930s spent much of his time at Rincon Point: Warner Oland, internationally famous for playing the Chinese detective Charlie Chan. 

During their all-too-brief spring visit to our area we caught up with Lorraine and Wardie Ward of Australia, who were in town reconnecting with family and friends. Despite being a long-time Antipodean, Wardie keeps up his local surf cred, which goes back to the 1960s. In fact, Wardie was on …