Rincon Point is the gift of its creek. Without it, we’d have no Queen of the Coast or prehistoric Chumash village. More lagoon than creek for most of the year, Rincon’s creek usually gets little notice, its sloughy flow barely reaches the Pacific in summer, backing up into a tiny wetland between creek mouth and the freeway. The spot is an ideal habitat for goby, ducks, herons, egrets and much more. In earlier days, steelhead trout swam upstream, famously gracing the menu of a local inn. But when the big El Niño rains come, Rincon Creek can morph overnight into a mighty flood carrying everything in its path to the Pacific.
The point’s two modern founding families, the Hills and the Bateses, both lost structures to Rincon Creek. The Hills were the first victims: In January 1914 (an El Niño year) they lost everything; the Santa Barbara newspaper reporting: “the Dr. R. W. Hill place, landmark of the Rincon road, has been washed into the sea. The house, barn, outbuildings, and the magnificent sycamore, are gone.”
The matter ended in court when the Hills successfully claimed that the Southern Pacific Railroad had put their home in danger with shoddy construction of retaining walls. A dozen years later, an April 1926 (also an El Niño year) flood knocked the Bates family structures off their moorings, including the book-filled cabin of Harry Mitchell. In the post-World War II era, the flood of January 1969 may be the most remembered, although 1983 was no slouch either…