Fort Bragg's Glass Beach is home to thousands of pieces of sea glass. photo: Lisa D. Walker
Fort Bragg hides a beachcomber’s dream. Instead of digging their feet into the sand, visitors in this small California town on the Mendocino coast can walk along Glass Beach, a beach topped with thousands of pieces of sea glass. Once a dump, Glass Beach is now protected as part of MacKerricher State Park.
Glass beach during low tide. photo: Lisa D. Walker
The unusual history of Glass Beach began with an earthquake. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the three beaches collectively known as Glass Beach became the town dump. Dumping continued until the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board banned it in 1967. In the decades that followed, thousands of discarded glass pieces were polished into sea glass. Writing on his website, SeaGlassJournal.com, sea glass collector Gary de Blois called the area a “mecca for sea glass collectors around the world.”
“There are some rumors that there was a glass factory here; that is not true…There were several glass artists here and over the years they would also throw their slag out there,” explained Lisa D. Walker, a Fort Bragg resident for over 25 years who wrote a book about the region. “We do occasionally find some interesting pieces from those artists.”
Fort Bragg isn’t the only town with a glass beach. Other beaches with large amounts of sea glass are located in Benicia, California, and Kauai, Hawaii.
—Grace Duggan