bjgreen
A 1902 map of the Goleta slough (Image: United States Geological Survey)
By Betsy J. Green
Back in 1918, the place where our airport is now – was full of sharks! The Goleta Slough extended farther inland than it does today, and surrounded Mescaltitán Island. (The remnant of this island is now a small hill on the southeast side of the airport.) “There are sharks in Santa Barbara waters, it is true,” wrote the local paper in 1918. “If there is any doubt, let the doubter go to Mescaltitán Island, to the west of Santa Barbara, on any day, and at any time when the tide is half to the full, and look into the waters of the estero [slough] that are flowing at the boundaries of the island. At any time, sharks eight, 10 and 12-feet long can be seen floating in or floating out.” Eeek! But, don’t worry, folks. “These are not the man-eating sharks … The man-eating kind do not come this far up,” the local paper assured its readers.
I contacted Dr. Milton Love, author of “Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast,” about the sharks. He told me, “Yes, it is possible that sharks of that size can enter into estuaries in California, they do (or did), for instance, swim into Humboldt Bay and San Francisco Bay. The shark most likely to attack humans, the white shark, could possibly have come into the old Goleta Slough, but it would likely have been other, less bitey, species.”
My next Way Back When book — 1918 — is available in local bookstores and at Amazon.com. This is the fifth book in my series of the history of Santa Barbara, one year at a time.
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Check out the large number of private jets moored at the airport. Chances are, the area has sharks.