Right here on Santa Barbara's Stearns Wharf sits the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center, briefly known as the Ty Warner Sea Center. This is the small museum the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History owns and operates, devoted to the marine life and conservation of the Santa Barbara Channel. Its story starts in 1986, when it first opened, though it was forced to close almost immediately after a fire under the pier.
A year later it reopened after repairs and with more exhibits, and some of those original highlights still greet visitors today: a life-size model of a gray whale and her calf, aquaria, and static exhibits about marine life and ocean ecology. After many successful years the Center expanded, adding building space, larger touch tanks, and new exhibits, and reopened in 2005 after a $6.5 million renovation, funded in large part by local businessman Ty Warner. Following a 2016 rebranding of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the Sea Center returned to its original name.
That layered history sits beneath your feet, right where the wharf meets the Channel this place was built to celebrate.