SS Palo Alto

SS Palo Alto was a concrete ship built as a tanker at the end of World War I.  It was built by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Oakland, California. It was launched on 29 May 1919, too late to see service, so it was mothballed until 1929 when it was towed to Seacliff State Beach in Aptos, California.

My family stopped here in Dec 1976, and she's still in one piece! 



In 1930 the SS Palo Alto was towed to Seacliff State Beach by the Seacliff Amusement Corporation and sunk a few feet into the water. A dance floor, swimming pool, and a café were added transforming the SS Palo Alto into an amusement ship for two years until, with the help of the Great Depression, the company went bankrupt.

Seacliff State Beach bought the boat for $1.00   The foredeck of the ship was closed to the public in 1958, but the afterdeck is closest to the beach and remained open until at least the 1970s and possibly the mid-1980s, when access was completely closed off for safety reasons. Today she serves as an artificial reef for marine life.

In 2017,  there was a storm; the waves reached a record height: 34 feet, according to a National Weather Service buoy in the bay, more than a foot taller than the previous record set in 2008. With the tall waves came destruction. The pounding surf snapped a section of the Palo Alto nearest to shore from the rest of the ship.

This next photo was taken just before the storm hit, and the second photo was just after the roughest part of the storm (I borrowed them off the internet!)  There are plenty of videos and articles about this wonderful part of our local history.