Surf History

1885 exhibition of 'surf-board swimming' used Santa Cruz redwoods

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 9 November, 2009 : - - In 1885, three Hawaiian princes visiting Santa Cruz on a break from military school wowed the locals with, as a newspaper report put it, 'interesting exhibitions of surf-board swimming as practiced in their native islands.'

According to many historians, that was the first documented instance of board surfing in California, perhaps the first on the U.S. mainland. But now, a Santa Cruz real estate appraiser and lifelong surfer named Kim Stoner has gone an extra step for local pride, using century-old records to trace the princes' boards back to redwoods grown just a couple of miles from the museum.

"It all tells a story," said Stoner, 58, gesturing toward copies of documents that drew a crowd inside the redwood structure, originally an Episcopal church. They were deeds covering a swath of about 400 acres just down California Highway 9, on the site of what is now the rambling old Brookdale Inn. In 1885 it was the Grover Brothers lumber mill and several hundred acres of ancient redwoods -- the raw material, Stoner contends, for this surfing first.

For a town that unsuccessfully battled Huntington Beach over rights to the name Surf City USA, this was big.

"Oh, my god, this is just absolutely huge -- monumental even," said Thomas Hickenbottom, an author who was signing copies of his recently released history of Santa Cruz surfing. "That this San Lorenzo Valley redwood played such an important role in the development of early surfing -- well, it's just fascinating."

A ukulele quintet was strumming the Beach Boys' greatest hits. People ate cupcakes with candy surfboards jauntily sticking out of ocean-blue icing. Middle-aged men in Hawaiian shirts couldn't help but run their hands over a polished 90-pound redwood surfboard crafted by Michel Junod, a noted local board shaper.

Some surfing experts are quick to point out that although the princes might have been the first chronicled mainland surfers, the sport's roots span the globe.

Ancient Peruvian pottery, for instance, is adorned with images of fishermen in reed boats riding the waves back to shore after a day's catch. On Africa's west coast, British explorer James Edward Alexander wrote in 1835 of "boys swimming into the sea, with light boards under their stomachs."

Many historians say the sport exploded in the early decades of the 20th century in Southern California. Irish-Hawaiian athlete George Freeth -- described by Jack London as "a young god bronzed with sunburn" -- gained fame as the father of professional surfing, astonishing locals at Redondo Beach and elsewhere on the Southern California coast.

Read the Full Article at LA Times

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Source: LA Times

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