The shipwreck of the SS Monte Carlo occasionally emerges from the sands of South Beach, located on Coronado Island, about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) east of Point Loma and 3.4 miles (5.5 km) south of San Diego, California. The SS Monte Carlo was a 300-foot (91.5 m) concrete ship launched in 1921 as the oil tanker SS Old North State. Coronado Island is a “tied island,” connected to the mainland by a sandy isthmus called Silver Strand. Before the arrival of European settlers, the island was inhabited by the Kumeyaay, who maintained fishing villages on the North Island peninsula and Coronado Cays. As missionaries and settlers moved into the area, the Kumeyaay were displaced, with the last six families relocated to the Mesa Grande Reservation in 1902.

Elisha S. Babcock, Hampton L. Story, and Jacob Gruendike purchased the island with the intention of creating a resort community. In 1886, they organized the Coronado Beach Company, and by 1888, they had built the Hotel del Coronado, establishing the city as a major resort destination. They also constructed a schoolhouse and formed athletic, boating, and baseball clubs. The community of Coronado was incorporated as a town in 1890. In the 1910s, streetcars became a fixture of the city until their retirement in 1939. In 1917, the northern part of the island was commissioned as a Naval Air Station, initially called Naval Air Station San Diego. In 1955, it was renamed Naval Air Station North Island and became the home port for several U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. Today, it is part of Naval Base Coronado, the largest aerospace-industrial complex in the U.S. Navy.

During World War I, the construction of concrete ships was approved to conserve steel. The Emergency Fleet Corporation contracted 24 ships, but only 12 were completed by the 1918 armistice. Tanker No. 1 was already under construction by the Liberty Shipbuilding Company in Wilmington, North Carolina, and launched in 1921 for the U.S. Quartermaster Corps. In 1923, the vessel was purchased by the Associated Oil Company of San Francisco and repurposed as the commercial oil tanker McKittrick. In 1932, McKittrick was sold and renamed Monte Carlo, converted for gambling, prostitution, and drinking—all illegal during Prohibition. The Monte Carlo opened in 1932 off Long Beach, California, capitalizing on crowds from the Los Angeles Olympics. In 1936, the Monte Carlo was moved to international waters off Coronado Island, where law enforcement could not regulate its operations. On New Year’s Day 1937, a storm caused the ship’s anchor to lose its hold while it was anchored 3 miles (4.8 km) offshore. Consequently, the Monte Carlo drifted onto the beach in front of what is now the El Camino Tower of the Coronado Shores condominiums. The wreckage is visible underwater at low tide and is occasionally exposed during strong storm tides. Read more here and here. Explore more of Coronado Shores here: