New Brighton State Beach
Encyclopedia
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
park consisting of a beach and camping grounds. The park is located on east of Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
in Capitola
Capitola, California
Capitola is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, on the coast of Monterey Bay. The population was 9,918 at the 2010 census.-History:...
. The park is adjacent to Seacliff State Beach
Seacliff State Beach
Seacliff is a California State Beach located off Highway 1 in the town of Aptos about south of Santa Cruz, on State Park Drive. The beach is most known for the concrete ship SS Palo Alto lying in the water...
which is known for its fishing pier and sunk concrete freighter, The Palo Alto
Palo Alto (tanker)
The Palo Alto was a concrete ship built as a tanker at the end of World War I. She was built by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Oakland, California. She was launched on May 29, 1919, too late to see service in the war...
.
History
The cove was once called China Beach for the Chinese fishermen who built encampments and docked their boats there in the mid-19th century. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 helped the demise of the village. By 1900, there were few remnants of its existence.Thomas Fallon
Thomas Fallon
Thomas Fallon was an Irish-born, Canadian-raised American capitalist and politician, the tenth Mayor of San Jose, California.-Biography:...
owned that land and tried to develop the location under the name "New Brighton". After he died, ownership shifted to his descendents who still leased the area to campground managers. In 1933, the State of California purchased the land.