Stearns Wharf runs out into the Santa Barbara harbor from the spot where State Street ends at Cabrillo Boulevard. Completed in 1872, it became the longest deep-water pier between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Named for its builder, local lumberman John Peck Stearns, the wharf served the passenger and freight shipping needs of California's South Coast for over a quarter century.
Before the wharf, passengers and cargo had to be rowed ashore through the breakers and kelp. Despite the great convenience offered by the wharf, Santa Barbara remained a fair-weather harbor with an acute need for a breakwater. In December 1878 storms destroyed and washed away more than 1,000 feet of the wharf, and it would be another 52 years before Santa Barbara got its needed breakwater.
When the railroad reached Santa Barbara in 1877, Stearns added a spur to the wharf to connect his lumberyard and the nearby Southern Pacific Depot; that spur was damaged by severe storms in the early 20th century and finally abandoned in 1923. The Harbor Restaurant was built on the wharf in 1941. Beneath your feet the wharf still meets the channel, right where State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard come together.