Glass Beach

About 3 hours north of San Francisco sits a cute little city in Mendocino County Called Fort Bragg. In this city there are three beaches covered in tiny bits of color.

The History
Starting in 1906 the city began “dump sites” for their trash in designated places along the coast. The first one was from 1906-1943. When that one was filled the second one was started and ran from 1943-1949. When this beach was filled they started “dump site number 3” (Glass Beach). That began in 1949 and was active up until 1967.

At that time the site was closed and various clean-up efforts began through the years to correct the damage. Over time whatever was biodegradable eventually degraded. The metal was scrapped or used in art and other items were removed.

What happened from there is pure beauty. The pounding waves broke the glass down smoothing, polishing and shining it into the magnificent little pieces of beauty that the beach is full of today.

The main beach (Site 3) is part of MacKerricher State Park. The other two beaches are just south of the city and part of the city parks.

Due to people collecting the sea glass it has diminished pretty badly at the main beach. Nowadays most of the sea glass can be found at the two smaller beaches.

This is one of those things that while awful that people used the coast and ocean to dump their trash long ago it left something of beauty behind. I will hope that you will go explore these great places but be kind, not to add to them disappearing more. As I always say what we take from these places the next people won’t get to experience.

There are two similar glass beach locations as well. Benicia, California and Hanapepe, Hawaii.