search

SURFERMAG ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

A perfect longboard performance wave, out of the 50s and into the 60s Malibu was favored by the best hotdoggers of the 60s including Dewey Weber, Lance Carson, Tom Morey and most of the greats of that era, who either lived for the spot or came there when a south swell was running and weaved their way through the growing crowds of dweebs, gremmies, kooks, hodads and cowboys who plugged the lineup in increasing numbers.

In the 70s and 80s, the lineup was ruled and order was kind of maintained by the likes of Jay Riddle and Angie Reno, while Malibu produced hot 90s surfers like Ricky Shaffer and Solo Scott.

In The Beginning:

• Malibu Creek was an important place for the Chumash Indians: A fresh-water supply in an arid desert, lobster and fish on the reef, more fish in the rivers. The Chumash named the point “humaliwu” which means: Where the surf sounds loudly. • The first European to explore California – Juan Cabrillo – might have stopped at Malibu Creek in 1542 to get fresh water. He described a Puebla de las Canoas – a small village with a lot of canoes at the foot of a canyon. • The first legal claim to land in Malibu was made in 1802 by Spanish settler Jose Bartoleme Tapia. Tapia established a ranch and built a large adobe in Malibu Canyon. These property holdings became known as the "Rancho Topanga Malibu Simi Sequit."

• Passed down through family inheritance, the rancho was eventually sold by Henry Keller to Frederick Hastings Rindge in 1891 for the reputed figure of $300,000. The original Spanish Land Grant was 13,300 acres and that was expanded to 17,000 acres. The Rancho Topanga Malibu y Sequit at one time was one of the most valuable pieces of property in the United States. It was a working cattle ranch, but as the population of Los Angeles began to boom, the State of California and the United States Government tried to built a lighthouse on the property, and build a railroad through it and a highway. The Rindge family fought all of these attempts in order to keep the land to themselves, but it was a losing battle. • The Rindge family of Malibu and the Hollister family of Gaviota fought very similar battles to maintain the privacy of their coastal, south-facing ranchlands. The Rindges didn’t want the railroad, so they built their own and manipulated a law which disallowed two railroads along the same route.. The Hollisters did want the railroad, and part of the deal is the family got free rides to Los Angeles or San Francisco from the two stops on the Ranch.

SCDIR onlineexclusives SCNAME NEWS SSCDIR SSCNAME -->

Subscribe to Surfer Magazine