Seacliff State Beach on Monterey Bay in Aptos has layers of history stretching from Ohlone homelands to Rancho Aptos, granted to Rafael Castro after Mexican independence. The shoreline later became a shipping point linked to redwood logging and was also associated with the recruitment of California vaqueros who went to Hawaiʻi and became known as paniolos. In the 1850s Thomas Fallon developed part of the beach as the New Brighton resort, and in 1931 Seacliff officially became a state beach after an early state preservation grant. Its most famous feature, the concrete ship SS Palo Alto, became a short-lived amusement attraction in 1930 before enduring offshore as a ruin and marine habitat.