Fort Bragg, California: Glass Beach

After devastation from the San Francisco Earthquake, in 1906 the town of Fort Bragg began using the ocean as a dumping field for their trash. From 1949 to 1967, this beach was publicly the Fort Brag Dump and everything was dumped there, such as cars, household appliances, batteries, cans and bottles. This apparently was a common practice of seaside cities for centuries. In 1967, the North Coast Water Quality Board made plans to move the dump away from the ocean after realizing the dump's negative impact on the water quality. Amazingly, the glass from these perishables has been smoothed down by the ocean's powerful waves and redeposited onto the beach, as seen in the photo above. In some areas the glass completely covers the beach. 

There are actually three glass beach sites. Each site was the town's dump for a period of time, Site 1 from 1906 to 1943, Site 2 from 1943 to 1949 and Site 3 from 1949 to 1967. In 2002, the California Department of Parks and Recreation purchased Glass Beach Site 3 and incorporated it into MacKerricher State Park. 

"All park cultural features are protected by the law and may not be removed or disturbed, including glass found at Glass Beach," says California State Parks regarding Glass Beach at MacKerricher State Park.