Capitola's oldest-resort claim comes with a good seaside story

Capitola has billed itself for years as the oldest resort on the Pacific Coast. The careful version is even better: Capitola may be the oldest settlement on this coast founded as a resort and still serving that role.

The beach area had an official opening on July 4, 1874. Earlier visitors camped around Soquel Landing, but the place did not yet have the organized resort feel people now connect with Capitola. By 1883, a promotion called it an old seaside camping ground and praised its improved lodging, cottages, and ocean-facing rooms.

At first, Capitola was mostly a summer place. Families came for the beach, tents, cottages, music, baths, and relief from inland heat. The village later grew more permanent, but that summer rhythm still lingers in the way people think about Capitola Beach and the village streets.

The claim matters less as a trophy and more as a clue. Capitola has colorful houses and a pretty cove, and it is also one of California’s early beach-vacation places, where the habit of going to the coast for rest, air, crowds, and a little spectacle became part of the town’s identity.