Tells about the fight against turning this open parcel of coastal land into a tourist and business hub.

Bolstered by the creation of the Coastal Commission, the citizens of Santa Cruz organized and challenged the city council’s support of the project, ultimately saving Lighthouse Point. The successful campaign not only came to stand as a testament to the Coastal Commission and its influence in many coastal communities, but also would prove a watershed moment in the history of Santa Cruz.

Credits: 
Featured interviewees: Gary Patton, Katherine Beiers, Andrew Schiffrin
Interviews, research, writing: Todd Holmes
Audio production: Allie Cheroutes
Narration: Paul Burnett

This is the pilot episode of the forthcoming Coastal Tales: The Long Struggle to Preserve California’s Coast, a 15-part podcast produced by the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley in partnership with the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. Interviews are part of the Oral History Center’s California Coastal Commission project and you can access the interviews in full here: ucblib.link/OHC-coast

Saving Lighthouse Point

The Oral History Center preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. Our podcast, The Berkeley Remix, delves into pressing issues, making our vast archive accessible to scholars and the public. The UC Berkeley Oral History Center, a division of The Bancroft Library, was founded in 1953 and produces carefully researched, audio/video-recorded, and transcribed oral histories and interpretative historical materials for the widest possible use.