We’ve made multiple visits to the beautiful city of Santa Barbara, California.
Nestled between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean — 92 miles north of Los Angeles — Santa Barbara is known as the “American Riveria.” for its sunny weather, sweeping coastlines, distinctive architecture and world-class food and wines.
30 Fun Facts About Santa Barbara, California
1. Humans have inhabited the area around Santa Barbara for more than 12,000 years.
2. Before the arrival of European explorers, the area of Santa Barbara was home to as many as 10,000 Chumash people.
3. Evidence of Chumash culture can be viewed today at a sandstone cave in the Santa Ynez Mountains just behind the city of Santa Barbara. Visitors to the Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park can view Chumash saint bart on the walls, thought to depict a 1677 solar eclipse.
4. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo — a Portuguese captain exploring for the Spanish crown –sailed up the California coast in search of the Northwest Passage. In October, 1542, Cabrillo’s ships came near the modern day Santa Barbara, and during his brief visit, he claimed the entire area for Spain.
5. Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed into the channel between Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands during rough seas on December 4, 1602, which was also Saint Barbara’s feast day. Vizcaíno named the area “Santa Barbara” after Saint Barbara, a legendary martyr of the early Christian Church. (Saint Barbara was beheaded by her father in 342 AD for refusing to renounce her Christian faith.)
6. The Spaniards returned 167 years later to establish missions and forts in “Alta” California to secure the region for Spain. In April, 1782 Spanish missionaries and soldiers arrived in Santa Barbara — tasked with fortifying the region against expansion by England and Russia, and converting the natives to Christianity.
7. Construction of the Presidio began on April 21, 1782, on a site chosen by Spaniard Felipe de Neve, the fourth governor of Las Californias. The early Presidio consisted of mud and brush walls around a quadrangle, and was by 1783 — home to 61 men and officers.
8. The Santa Barbara Presideo — now a state historical park– houses El Cuartel, an original adobe structure that’s the second oldest surviving building in the state of California.
9. The Santa Barbara Mission was established on December 4, 1786 — the Feast of Saint Barbara Day — by Padre Fermín Lasuén, primarily for the religious conversion the indigenous Chumash tribe to Catholicism.
10. Fr. Antonio Ripoll designed the church by copying from a Roman book of architecture written in 27 B.C. Visitors to the Mission’s Museum can see the book Fr. Ripoll used.
11. Mission Santa Barbara is the only mission to remain under the leadership of the Franciscan Friars since its founding in 1796, and today is a parish church of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
12. With the end of the Mexican War of Independence in 1822, the flag of Mexico replaced the flag of Spain at the Santa Barbara Presidio, a change that would last only for 24 years.
13. During the Mexican–American War, Santa Barbara fell to a battalion of American soldiers led by John C. Fremont on December 27, 1846.
14. Under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Santa Barbara became part of the expanding United States.
15. When Santa Barbara’s Stearns Wharf pier was opened in 1872 at the end of State Street, it was the longest deep-water pier between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Today Stearns Wharf is one of Santa Barbara’s most iconic landmarks with restaurants, shops and stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.
16. Founded on a high seismic zone with multiple fault lines, St Barbara suffered devastating earthquakes in 1812 and 1925.
17. The 6.3 magnitude earthquake on June 29, 1925 destroyed much of downtown Santa Barbara and killed 13 people. This destructive earthquake coincided with an architectural reform and unification movement led by Pearl Chase, resulting in many of the city’s famous buildings being rebuilt in Spanish Colonial style.
18. The Santa Barbara County Courthouse — completed in 1929 in downtown Santa Barbara, is one example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style. The open air tower of this red tiled Spanish-Moorish building provides panoramic views of Santa Barbara.
19. Santa Barbara is also home to many Victorian-style homes and buildings — influenced by architect Peter J. Barber, who also served two terms as the Mayor of Santa Barbara from 1880-1882, and from 1890-1892.
20. Known as the “Hollywood of the North,” hundreds of silent movies and westerns were filmed in Santa Barbara in the early 1900s including Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments in 1923.
21. Between 1910 and 1922, two blocks of Santa Barbara were home to Flying A Studios, the world’s largest movie studio at the time. Flying A and the other smaller local studios produced 1,200 films during their tenure in Santa Barbara.
22. The Santa Barbara area continues to be used as a movie location. “Sideways ” “It’s Complicated,” “Hidalgo,” “Seabiscuit” and “20th Century Women” are some of the films shot in the area.
23. While the soap opera “Santa Barbara” — aired on NBC from 1984 to 1993 – depicted the lives of the Capwell family of Santa Barbara – the show was filmed at NBC Studios in Burbank, California.
24. Santa Barbara’s famous Moreton Bay Fig Tree – located by the Amtrak Train Station at 209 State Street — provides more than 21,000 square feet of shade and is considered to be the largest Ficus macrophylla in the United States
25. In addition to averaging 300 days of sunshine each year, Santa Barbara has a unique east-west coastline — the only one from Alaska to Cape Horn–that provides the city with year-round southern exposure.
26. In 1962, Motel 6 was founded in Santa Barbara by two local building contractors, William Becker and Paul Greene. The original room rate of $6 per night inspired the company’s “Motel 6” name.
27. Santa Barbara is home to four institutions of higher learning including the University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara City College, Westmont College, and Antioch University.
28. Actors Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow are both alumni of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
29. President John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie spent part of their honeymoon in Santa Barbara.
30. Every August, Santa Barbara celebrates its annual Fiesta with parades, carnivals and performances. Originally called “Old Spanish Days,” Fiesta began as a tourist attraction to draw visitors in the 1920s.
Learn more about Santa Barbara with these:
Moon Santa Barbara & the Central Coast
Day Hikes Around Santa Barbara: 116 Great Hikes
Mission Santa Barbara
What fun fact can you add about Santa Barbara, California?
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