Point Castillo

Point Castillo is the rocky promontory that anchors the breakwater in Santa Barbara, marked by the prominent circular shape of the harbor light. Originally a natural formation, it served as a vantage point for the Chumash people long before Spanish soldiers established a temporary battery there in the eighteenth century. During the nineteen twenties, developers blasted away a significant portion of the sandstone to create a deep-water harbor. Workers dumped the excavated rock into the ocean to form the base of the modern breakwater.