The iconic Ocean Beach Municipal Pier turns 50 this month. It’s billed as the largest concrete pier on the West Coast, jutting 1,971 feet into the Pacific Ocean. Originally it was known as the San Diego Fishing Pier.
Initially, not everyone liked the idea of a pier, according to one of the original boosters. Some feared it would pack Ocean Beach with tourists and touch off a building boom.
“I think I convinced them that it would be good for business and everything else,” said Chuck Bahde, who led a group that supported building the pier. “It was a hard fight with some, but generally speaking the people went along.”
Construction took roughly a year and included a series of challenges.
“About half way, a tsunami came along and took out three of the six bays that were holding up our heavy equipment,” said Leonard Teyssier, who was the general contractor. “We thought we were going to lose it, but we got back up on the job and solved it.”
The wave started in Japan and washed away the gravel under the job site. It forced workers to alter the pier’s design. The pier bends where they restarted, he said.
The hard terrain make it impossible to anchor equipment off shore. The developer was forced to build the pier backward, from the land out, rather than starting in the ocean.
Roughly 7,000 people attended the opening in 1966. The pier now attracts roughly half a million people a year, making it one of San Diego’s most visited attractions.
