Latest Update: LONG BEACH'S SITE OF THE 1938 NATIONAL SURFING AND PADDLEBOARD CHAMPIONSHIPS A California Point of Historical Interest

Earlier this year the Director of California State Parks designated Long Beach's site of the 1938 National Surfing and Paddleboard Championships, held in the downtown area between the former Rainbow Pier and The Pike Amusement Zone, as a California Point of Historical Interest. This designation recognized Long Beach's important pre-war surfing history and the 1938 event as one of Southern California's first surfing contests. The Long Beach Chapter, City of Long Beach staff, and the nonprofit preservation practice Sea of Clouds collaborated on the nomination, which itself began pre-pandemic. A long road and a big deal.

 

Throughout the nomination's planning and now, following the designation, there are ideas and interest to physically mark the contest site as a place of history, memory, interpretation, and maybe celebration, too. Where would this happen, what form would it take (plaque? public art?), how would it be paid for, and how could it speak to other questions (indigenous dispossession, equity) are among the important community conversations to take place. 

 

Recently, Sea of Clouds kicked off two of these conversations, with the City of Long Beach Planning Department and the Long Beach Marine Advisory Commission (MAC), to first organize some of these questions, and then step back to make room for the LB Chapter and other community members to lead. So far, so good! The Planning Department is researching how a marker would happen and the MAC, at their July 11th meeting, voted to form an ad hoc subcommittee to organize their ideas, too. 

 

Sea of Clouds, together with Long Beach Chapter volunteer Bryce Leisy, has created two resources for everyone to access. Links are below. Let's join other community organizations and institutions to mark this moment in Long Beach / SoCal surfing history!