What was Morro Bay like when it became a city 60 years ago? Surprisingly familiar. Here’s how

Imagine it’s late July 1964 and you’re driving a first-year Ford Mustang convertible in a newly minted Central Coast city by the sea.

What might you have driven past then in the just-incorporated Morro Bay?

By the ocean, at the south end of Embarcadero, check out the restroom building in the public boat launch area. Civilian Conservation Corps crews built that in the 1930s.

A little further north, there’s the Morro Bay Yacht Club and a store selling shells, aptly named The Shell Shop.

Keep going and pass the Virg’s Landing boat launch pier.

Around the bend, see Harbor Hut and the stacks of the Morro Bay Power Plant — only a decade old.

Look up from the Embarcadero, and see Dorn’s Breakers Café, a little breakfast and lunch spot then, and its sister, a dinner house confusingly named The Breakers. (The city owns the latter building now and is trying to sell it, according to planning commissioner Eric Meyer.)

Turning into downtown back in 1964, you’d cruise past the Bay Theater, and way beyond that, the blue sign that points you toward Fosters Freeze (which was smaller then).

The new Morro Bay High School was at 235 Atascadero Road at the time, as Dave Thomas of the Shell Shop recalls. He was in the school’s first graduating class in 1962, he said.

Morro Bay Campground and Morro Bay Golf Course were there, too, although the latter was originally known as the nine-hole Cabrillo Country Club.

Sound familiar? Yup, they’re all still there, still going strong.

Mind you, this isn’t all from personal experience, although some of it is. I moved to Cambria seven years after voters approved Morro Bay’s cityhood in 1964.

But, for this column I tapped a veritable sorcerer’s apprentice wealth of information out there in the memory banks of many people.

Among them were Meyer, Thomas, Mayor Carla Wixom, historian Jack Smith, author and tour guide Joe Dunlap — who wrote “When Morro Bay Went to War” and “Morro Bay in World War II” — Giovanni DeGarimore of his eponymous seafood store and outdoor eateries, Cambria ranch matriarch Mary Negranti and others who grew up in or lived in or near the small town-turned-city back then.

It can be challenging to write about history because interviews can yield conflicting information. Memories can differ.

But there are a few through lines.

Morro Bay business today echoes still echoes 60 years ago

Many circa-1964 businesses have of course closed, changed ownership or morphed since then into something else in the same buildings.

Many are being restored, like the curved-front old building at 400 Morro Bay Blvd. that began as Morro Bay Creamery and ice cream shop, then a paint store, then Threads thrift store and who knows what else in between.

It should eventually open as a totally revamped Sammy J’s Irish Pub and Restaurant. But the bones and façade of that 1940s to ‘50s era building are still here, still being honored.

Brebe’s Fish Market is now Giovanni’s Fish Market, and the Coffee Pot is now Giovanni’s Take-Out Express.

Morro Bay Butcher & Deli is where the old Chat-N-Chew eatery was.

Today’s trendy Siren restaurant and music venue used to be the rowdy dive bar Happy Jack’s and the Fuel Dock.

The Golden Tee resort is now The Inn at Morro Bay.

Hart’s Fish Bowl on the Embarcadero became simply the Fish Bowl for a time. Now, it’s the Sun-N-Buns Bakery.

The distinctive rock house on Morro Bay’s “strand” to the north was a residence, then Dutch’s Criddle House restaurant, and now a home again. A vintage menu on Ebay noted the structure “was built completely from the stones of Morro Rock.”

And the list goes on.

What else might you have seen then, compared to today?

Back in the day, heaps of abalone shells were stacked behind the old sewer plant and behind Whale Rock Dam, according to Thomas.

He said they also were piled alongside Highway 41 near where Miner’s Hardware is now. He also recalled there being a lot of shells on land behind where the Morro Bay Event Center at 1338 Atascadero Road.

These days, the glistening shells are considered prime purchases for collectors, according to Thomas (who should know, after all).

But depleted natural marine stocks of abalone mean officials have sharply restricted or forbidden harvesting them, depending on the area. So, finding new stacks of shells is unlikely to happen on the Central Coast anymore.

Surfers still dot Morro Bay’s near shore surf and wave areas. There are just a whole lot more of them these days, lurking on their boards in “the lineup,” hoping for that perfect set and curl.

Today’s bustling tourist town has less of a fishing village vibe, but most visitors (and, to be honest, many area residents) are still laser focused on the beach, the piers, the docks, the bay, Morro Rock and the Pacific — plus ocean-oriented restaurants and shops, of course.

In the 1960s, most vessels in the bay were commercial fishing boats or smaller craft packed with rod-toting fisherfolk hoping to snag some rockfish.

These days, boats there are just as apt to be filled with whale watchers, otter spotters and other people who want to see the sea and marine life and the scenery.

You can still buy bait and more at some gas stations and other stores, however.

Shops in 2024 that rent surfboards also may rent surreys, bikes and e-bikes now, sometimes in vintage buildings that were there when Morro Bay became a city or soon thereafter.

Sometime during the 1960s, Embarcadero Marine Center also rented Honda 50 motorcycles. It was between Marina and Pacific streets, about where Marina Square is today, Dunlap recalled.

Before Morro Bay’s incorporation vote, the entire county had no roadway roundabouts to handle traffic scrums like that, let alone those beloved 1964 Mustangs. There was also considerably less traffic then.

Morro Bay has a roundabout now at the road tangle on Morro Bay Boulevard near Highway 1, and according to county sources, it was likely the first one in San Luis Obispo County. Another, estimated to cost $12 million, is in the works for the highway’s intersection with Highway 41.

Today’s Morro Bay has more community parks and defined trails than it did in 1964. There are several RV parks, many of the venerable ones that were called trailer parks 60 years ago.

City celebrating anniversary in September

Yes, a lot has changed in the city by the Rock and the bay since residents voted resoundingly to incorporate it.

Fortunately for many of us, a lot still remains the same there or close to it, and memories can merge almost seamlessly into today’s reality.

To commemorate the city’s history, Morro Bay is hosting a celebratory 60th Anniversary Celebration weekend, according to Wixom.

There will be events Sept. 5 through 7, starting with “tunes at Tidelands Park,” she told The Tribune.

Sept. 6 will feature a downtown celebration with ‘60s art at the Morro Bay Art Association and flowers from the Dahlia Society — the city’s official flower.

Sept. 7 will see a Founders Day Parade in the morning, followed by a family fun day at the city’s Tidelands Park, at 339 Embarcadero.

Happy 60th anniversary, Morro Bay.