“Here in a marvelous summerland, under the deepest blue of skies, you can watch the tides as they come and go; the white-caps play, sending high upwards their foam and spray; catch sight and sound of breaking waters along rippling beaches….” — E.B. Scott

So writes E.B. Scott, real estate prospector and newspaper-man, a century ago. Since the inception of Encinitas, Moonlight Beach has been the town’s sandy epicenter of recreation and social life. The tides at this beach have ebbed and flowed in unison with the times; bringing in the new pioneers who picnicked on the shoreline and washed their laundry in Cottonwood Creek, washing away the hard years of the Depression, ushering in the war years, tempering the heartache of lost sons and fathers, heralding the surfing era of the ‘50s, eroding and finally, bringing in a new era of surf contests, concerts and birthday parties.

During the late 1800s, the crash of the tides harmonized with the clash of iron as the railroad came through. As Scott writes, “Railroad construction workers were the first residents of Encinitas to enjoy the pleasures of Moonlight Beach, located at the northern edge of the young town.”

Two land prospectors rode the railroad boom-tide; J.S. Pitcher and Thomas Rattan. According to Scott, Pitcher bought much of Encinitas and eventually constructed a bathhouse, children’s playground, boardwalk, dancing pavilion and picnic areas. Perhaps during this time Moonlight Beach got its name, due to early pioneers’ picnicking by the light of the moon. It is here, from 1915 to 1925, that Moonlight Beach began to welcome the first North County residents for social outings and events. Horse and buggy races were held on the sand. One could drive in a Model T to Oceanside on the beach at low tide. Dances were held in the bathhouse and ‘surfbathing’ was popular.

The tides did much to refresh the early pioneers, who would travel for miles to collect water from Cottonwood Creek and then spend an afternoon playing in the water. In A Brief History of Encinitas, author Anne Hammond Cozens quotes Ted Hammond regarding the Encinitas Hotel, built in 1883: “There was not hot and cold water in every hotel room then, and if a guest wanted to take a bath he was invited to go to the beach, where all was free, and a bathing suit was not necessary, for he would be the only one there.”

At the height of Prohibition in 1928, the tides brought in a scandal on the beach. Ruthellen Myers Warner wrote her firsthand account for a prior Encinitas Magazine in August 1994.

“Late one night, someone knocked on the door and Dad in his white old fashioned night shirt answered it.

‘Hurry up, Spex, and get dressed,’ a deep voice said, ‘A boat running alcohol to L.A. went aground down at Moonlight.’

Be right there as soon as I get dressed.’

By the time Dad closed the door, Mom was dressed and I was in my bathrobe and slippers, and we were waiting on Dad….When we arrived, I think most of Encinitas was there, everybody with lanterns in their hands. In the dim lantern light, I could see the boat lying on its side and jugs scattered all over the beach.”

Her father brought some emptied and sterilized Pennzoil cans from home and filled them with the hooch. He put them back into his garage, and when a government man came the next day, played innocent. From then on, the locals would come by their house for games and sips of hooch from the Pennzoil cans.

During the ‘30s and ‘40s, the tides embraced families like the Truaxes and the Swaims. Lively, tan and athletic, the Truax
siblings, Rex, Bonnie, Betty Jo and Jim spent much time on the sand and in the water. Their mother was Ida May Noonan Truax. Her father at one time owned 10 acres above the ocean, which he named Noonan’s Point. After a short time he sold it and we now know that land as Swami’s, where the Self-Realization Temple sits. Bonnie and Betty Jo were beautiful twins who cheer leaded for the San Dieguito High School football team and who often lounged in the warm sand, surrounded by admirers. Youngest brother Jim Truax was one of Encinitas’ first surfers and a local track star. Gwen Truax, his widow, recalls Truax’s obsession with this little-known sport:

“They had what they called ‘kook boxes’ that they surfed on and they were hollow boards that took on water and I know they had a plug in them and they’d take the plug out. And I know that they were very heavy. It would take several of them to carry them out.” It seems that Truax would surf on anything. “He said that he tried to take an old ironing board [surfing] to see if it would work.”

The tides beat upon the shore in time with young lovers’ hearts. The cheerleader fell in the love with the football star. Betty Jo Truax married Leo Swaim. Leo Swaim’s family settled in Leucadia in 1922, with seven of their 11 children. Leo and twin brother Les were born on the journey west from Missouri. The eldest brother, Henry Bedford, or Bedford as he was called, was one of Moonlight Beach’s first lifeguards. Les Swaim remembers his brother Ralph, who surfed, ran track and went to school with Jim Truax. The boys spent a lot of time at Moonlight Beach, explains Swaim, because, “Everybody went there. It was the only thing to do during summer. There weren’t as many people living here back then, so we all fit!” There were dances down at the beach. Swaim also recalls a wooden float that was anchored 200 feet from the shore, at the south end of Hipsley’s concession stand and canvas raft rental. The float was eight feet square. “The kids who couldn’t swim would pull themselves out on the ropes that were tied to floats. The high school kids would dive off the raft, and push the smaller kids off.”

During the baby boom during the mid ‘40s to ‘50s, more people came to stay in ‘the marvelous summerland’ and the tides capered with many prosperous, hardworking young families. Carolyn Roy Cope’s family owned Roy’s Market in Leucadia. They lived within walking distance of Moonlight Beach, on McNeill Street in Encinitas. Cope spent every day on the beach, “I was a hyper kid, with a lot of energy.” Cope and her friends would collect bottles and trade them for the deposit. When they had 50 cents, they would rent a canvas raft from Hipsley’s and take turns riding the waves. “I was down at the beach everyday by 10 or 11 at the latest,” says Cope. Cope also liked to tandem surf with Larry Swaim, son of Lemuel, but bodysurfing at Moonlight Beach was and still is her passion. Cope remembers a cement pavilion on the south side of the beach, with picnic tables, grass and a full playground with teeter totters. There was a boardwalk that led to what she calls ‘a wooden structure’ (the bathhouse built around 1925) on the north side that contained a concession stand and Hipsley’s, which rented the rafts for 50 cents a day.

Linda Benson, five-time women’s world surfing champion, felt the pull of the Moonlight Beach tides in the late ‘50s, at the early age of nine. Benson says, “It was like the beach just called to me.” Benson was born and raised in Encinitas. She learned to surf at Moonlight Beach. Her roots here go even deeper. She is the late Bonnie Truax’s niece and growing up, was a neighbor of the Swaim family. She recalls, “Moonlight Beach was what you did in the summertime. My parents worked so I couldn’t just go. My neighbors would go and I would just invite myself.” She would watch the few guys out in the water surfing and when their heavy boards were washed in, would push them back out to them. One day, the magical moment that changed her life arrived:

“One day one of them said when I handed him the board, ‘Do you want to give it a try?’ I remember the ride. I remember standing up right away. From then on I was a pest…. After that I would beg them. They were big boards; it was right at the transition from balsa wood to foam. They would have to take it out, and then they would take it up again for me. I’d stay there till they came to get it.”

But things change. Hipsley’s and the big bathhouse were torn down. The boardwalk was removed. The playground, Cope thinks, was torn down for liability reasons. Even the tide, once so friendly to Benson, Truax, and Swaim, changed. Says Benson, “Moonlight Beach is not a great long board wave anymore. It’s changed and it’s pretty much a short board wave now. It really breaks hard and fast now. It wasn’t like that. It was a fun beach break.” Now Benson teaches surfing at Moonlight Beach during the summer at SurfHer, a surf camp sponsored by Roxy and Quiksilver.

Finally, the tides pulled flowers out to sea and brought surfers in as Encinitas has undergone a major transformation as flower capital to surf town USA. As Don Hansen, longtime resident and owner of Hansen’s surf shop in Encinitas states, “Moonlight Beach was a surfing beach in the 1950s, when I showed up, and it was also a social place, too. It’s maybe in the last 20 years that Encinitas has become a surfing area more than anything else…a lot of the flower people have moved out. It kind of naturally ended up as the [thing] Encinitas is most famous for is surfing.”

Moonlight Beach is the true town square for Encinitas and it always has been. It’s the place where great fortunes have been made and lost, legends have been born and love has blossomed. The tides have thumped in harmony with this town’s history since its beginning, and they will always be here, coming and going, witnessing the lives and deaths of Encinitas and her citizens. •