Port San Luis developed over a landscape shaped by erosion, as less resistant rock was worn away by waves to form the bay while more resistant rock created the surrounding headlands. The area was visited by Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the 1500s and 1600s, and by the 1880s it served as a gateway for shipping goods and moving passengers to and from the Pacific Rim and Europe. Its history included whaling at Port Harford Station beginning in 1868, the 1878 tidal wave that caused considerable damage to the Central Coast, construction of the Ocean Hotel in 1882, the sinking of the steamship Queen of the Pacific near the pier in 1888 with no lives lost, construction of the Port San Luis Light Station beginning in 1889, and breakwater construction starting in 1893 with stones from Morro Rock and Catalina Island and finishing in 1913. In the late 1800s and early 1900s the port experienced a bustling period as a trade and passenger port, and it developed into the largest crude oil shipping port in the world by WWII after Union Oil built the first oil pipeline to Avila Beach in 1906. Commercial fishing and abalone fishing began in 1900, fishing trawlers began operating from the port in 1945, and after the railroad and pier were sold to Elton Tognazzini in 1942, county residents voted in 1954 to create the Port San Luis Harbor District, which purchased the Tognazzini property and Harford Pier in 1964. Today the port is used mainly for commercial and sport fishing, local boating ventures, and other recreational purposes, although the Coast Guard closed Point San Luis Lighthouse in 1974 and the 2004 San Simeon Earthquake damaged the breakwater.