Ocean Beach

The Kumeyaay lived here before Europeans arrived and kept a fishing encampment called Hapai. They harvested mussels, clams, abalone and lobsters. The beach was first called Mussel Beach, and in 1887 developers Billy Carlson and Albert E. Higgins gave it the name Ocean Beach. They built a resort hotel called the Cliff House, divided the land into lots and held mussel roasts and concerts to attract buyers. It did not work. The site was two and a half hours by carriage from downtown, and the boom ended before their rented locomotive could help.

The Ocean Beach Railroad launched in April 1888 and fell victim to the downturn. Passengers took a ferry to Roseville in Point Loma and rode the train to the Cliff House. A fire started by a fallen chandelier burned the Cliff House down in 1898, and Carlson sold the tract to an Eastern financier, which delayed development for 20 years. D. C. Collier had bought oceanfront property in 1887 at just 16. He later laid out streets, promoted sales and built the Point Loma Railroad in 1909 to link the beach to the rest of the city. By 1910 there were 100 houses, up from 18 two years earlier.

Wonderland Amusement Park opened on July 4, 1913, on eight oceanfront acres at Voltaire and Abbott streets. It had a large roller coaster, a dance pavilion, a menagerie, a roller skating rink, a merry-go-round and a petting zoo with 500 monkeys, and 22,000 lights outlined its buildings. It went bankrupt in 1915 under competition from the Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park and was sold at auction. Winter storms wrecked the roller coaster, and the park closed in 1916. The name lives on in local business names and in a documentary series on KPBS television.

In 1915 John D. Spreckels and his Bayshore Railway Company built a 1,500 ft (460 m) wooden bridge between Ocean Beach and Mission Beach. A trolley ran across it and tied the beaches to downtown. The bridge was demolished in January 1951, which cut off through traffic from Mission Beach and Pacific Beach. Together with the dredging of Mission Bay, that left Ocean Beach geographically isolated until Interstate 8 was built in 1967. The last stretch of that freeway, from Interstate 5 to its end here, is officially the Ocean Beach Freeway.

Surfing came to San Diego at Ocean Beach in 1916, when a local lifeguard borrowed a board from Duke Kahanamoku, though George Freeth may have surfed there between 1907 and 1909. By 1966 the sport was established enough that the World Surfing Championship was held in O.B., and Nat Young won it. The neighborhood was once known as the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego. It attracted hippies, who were eventually accepted by many local businesses. A head shop opened on Newport Avenue, along with the Ocean Beach People's Organic Food Market.

Starting in the early 1970s, developers pushed for tourist resorts, hotels and a marina along the oceanfront, as outlined in the Ocean Beach Precise Plan. The 30 ft (9.1 m) height limit passed in 1972, the plan was rewritten, and the waterfront plans were dropped. Dog Beach, at the north end of the waterfront, is open 24 hours a day for leash-free dogs and was founded in 1972. It was one of the first beaches of its kind in the United States.

The Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historic District holds Craftsman bungalows, cottages and other structures built from 1887 to 1931. The city has designated the Ocean Beach Library and the Strand Theater as historic landmarks. The Strand, a single-screen movie house, opened in November 1925. In the late 1970s it survived on midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It closed in the 1990s and became a clothing store, and the Historical Resources Board named it a historic building in December 2002. Some bungalows built as tourist lodgings on the cliffs beside Niagara Avenue are still homes and businesses.

The Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, built in 1966, was the longest concrete pier in the world and the second longest ocean pier in California, at 1,971 feet (601 m). It closed in January 2021 for storm damage, reopened partly in May of that year and for several months in the summer of 2023. A severe storm damaged it again that winter, and the city announced plans to demolish and replace it with a new design based on community input. A concrete walkway runs along part of the 1 mile (1.6 km) beach, and the pier has been one of the few places visitors could fish without a California fishing license.

Small, independent retail dominates the economy. Newport Avenue, the main business street, was lined with family-owned shops from the 1930s through the 1960s, including a bakery, drug stores and a shoe store. In the 1960s and 1970s larger stores and malls elsewhere in the city pushed many of them out. Many of the storefronts turned into antique stores, and the area is now called the Ocean Beach Antique District. Newport also has restaurants, coffee houses, bars, bike and surf shops and an international youth hostel. There are several small independent hotels, but none belong to a national chain.

The community has actively opposed chain businesses, and only a few exist. In the 1970s protests led a donut chain to drop its plans for a store. An Exxon station abandoned its attempt to open in 2000. Grassroots efforts failed to block Starbucks in 2001 and Target on Newport Avenue in 2019. On Wednesday afternoons, two blocks of Newport Avenue close for a farmers' market, usually from 4 to 8PM.

The Ocean Beach Street Fair and Chili Cookoff takes place in late June. The Kite Festival comes on the third Saturday of May, a jazz festival at the foot of Newport in late September, the Canine Carnival on the third Saturday in October and the Christmas Parade in early December. Ocean Beach has two schools, Ocean Beach Elementary (a K-4 public school) and Warren-Walker (a K-8 private school). It also has several churches, a public library, a post office and a vegetarian food co-op. The Ocean Beach Recreation Center, Dusty Rhodes Park and the Robb Field athletic fields and skate park provide recreation.

South of the neighborhood, Sunset Cliffs offers sunset views and a drive along the cliff rim. There is no lifeguard at the small secluded beach there, and reaching it means climbing down an eroding cliff face. Santa Cruz Cove, near the end of Santa Cruz Avenue, can only be reached at low tide, and heavy surf there has swept people out on several occasions, causing injuries and deaths. The television series Terriers and the film Mighty Oak were filmed and set in Ocean Beach, and key scenes from Almost Famous were shot on Newport Avenue.

San Diego International Airport is less than 10 minutes from downtown. By car, the main routes onto the peninsula are Rosecrans Street from Old Town, Harbor Drive past the airport, and Nimitz Boulevard from Mission Bay. Interstate 8 ends in Ocean Beach.

Bus service on the peninsula is slim, with few and infrequent routes. Route 35 runs to Ocean Beach and connects to the Trolley station in Old Town. Route 923 links Ocean Beach to downtown on weekdays and to the airport on Saturdays along Harbor Drive.