The Old Rincon Creek Brick Quarry - Part 1

I have searched and searched but I can not find a thing about these bricks on the web. Well.. There was a PDF file mentioning Benotite and something about a brick quarry at the mouth Rincon Creek. You had to pay for the article and that is frankly against my internet policy regarding information. So I will tell you what I know, and probably make some stuff up if I have to. I well tell you this. Facts or no facts this will be the most comprehensive piece useless information ever written about the subject. Please if you know anything about the subject feel free to school me in the comments. Our journey starts way further up the creek on a private road off Gobernador Canyon Rd It's here somewhere around 6-8 miles up the creek that the brick quarry stood. This was confirmed by Barron a long time resident of the Rincon Point enclave.

Now.. When I say private that's means I drove up there, and couldn't find any access points to the creek so I let it go. Well.. Not quite. Last summer desperate to find the source, and subsequently more bricks, I entered the creek at the only access point I could find. This creek does flow year round but it was a mere trickle this summer. Lined with massive amounts of poison oak on both sides, only an idiot would attempt to enter the creek dressed in shorts. So I jumped right in. In my 47 years I have had Poison Oak only one other time, but it was just a few weeks before this incident. Anyway.. I was armed with plenty of Mugwort, an old Chumash remedy which grows conveniently next to most poison oak groves. Well the creek was a bust, no bricks, and lots of private ranches lining the creek with plenty of dogs. Normally this would not have stopped me but, I brought my dog Riley along so and there was just too much barking. I came away with the worst case posion oak I have ever seen. Seriously.. I have permanent scaring.

By the way. Thanks to the California Constitution. It is legal to enter any creek, river, within 30 feet of a public bridge crossing regardless of of whether the creek flows through private property. I learned this from Kayaking days. The right to navigate the rivers and streams of California, including Rincon Creek, is guaranteed to the citizens by the State Constitution (Article 10, §4), which states:

No individual, partnership, or corporation, claiming or possessing the frontage or tidal lands of a harbor, bay, inlet, estuary, or other navigable water in this State, shall be permitted to exclude the right of way to such water whenever it is required for any public purpose, nor to destroy or obstruct the free navigation of such water; and the Legislature shall enact such laws as will give the most liberal construction to this provision, so that access to the navigable waters of this State shall be always obtainable for the people thereof.

The state retains ownership of navigable rivers and streams, and retains the power to regulate boating activities. This public right supercedes the rights of neighboring landowners, including situations in which waters flow through private property.

Way off on a tangent there. Sorry. Back to the bricks. I first learned of the bricks in 2005. We had those torrential rains to start off the year eventually causing the hillside here in La Conchita to slide, killing 10 people. We have had a lot of rain this year but, nothing even close to that. Well over 40 inches of rain fell over the course of a week or so. Thats over 26 feet of snow for you winter bound folks. Even more on Rincon Mountain. Two trash barrels according to Jessica. That is a lot of rain. That is the kind of rain you need for Santa Clara Rivermouth to do it's thing and form it's perfect V shape sand point. Long hollow rights or lefts, take your pick. And.. That is the kind of rain it takes to get these bricks out of Rincon Creek.

I was living in Carp during the slide, and the freeway was closed for about a week, so I rode my bike down to Rincon and there was a freaking huge pile of sand, rocks, and debris standing about 10 feet high and at least 100 feet wide at the mouth of the creek extending way out in the break. And the bricks.. Wow. I didn't really think much about them at the time. Cool colors I thought. But people were collecting them by the tons. Wheel Barrels, wagons, you name it. Actually I don't know who all was collecting them. My friend Wayne from Carpinteria is by far the biggest collector. I saw another huge stash in the mobile home park behind mine. There is a cool looking wall and walkway someone built right on the point. More on that in part two. I don't know why I didn't start collecting them.. This is kind of thing is right up my alley. Wow this is going long. Sorry.


Anyway last April, shortly after I moved out of Jenny's house in SB, and back home to Carp.. Just north of here.. I started finding a few bricks here and there on my morning walks at the point. I was hooked. Unfortunately the point has been pretty pick over and no bricks have been released since 2005. So finding even like one a day is nearly impossible. This is about the time I started to fix up the backyard and I wanted those bricks sooo bad. Just enough for a little walkway, patio or something. Had to have some. Wayne was not giving any up. No one. Period. But he did predict a rainy winter.. I needed them now! So I settled on a small round meditative patio, using a mix of creek bricks and some new bricks from a Masonry yard in SB. More on that in Part Two..

Flash forward to this winter. It has been pretty much non stop surf! Most of it has been pretty big but also really consistent! Lots of littoral drift going on. Best winter since '69 some say. We have lost at least 6'-10' of sand from the beach here in La Conchita. This has unearthed a gold mine of bricks that have been buried deep, deep, in the sand since 2005.


Thousands driving by every day oblivious to the gold mine of bricks for the taking.


Anyway the inspiration for this story was a walk on the beach waiting for a sunset that would never come. I decided to shoot these bricks in there natural state. So for the first time, I stopped picking them up, and just looked. The bricks get pretty cobbled and broken up making the trip down the creek, but after 5 years in the sand and sea these are even more cobbled. Large small, round, flat, square, broken it doesn't matter. I collect them all. Why...This kind of thing is right up my alley!