For a decade, the fastest way to see a racing car in Santa Monica was to stand beside an ordinary city street. From 1909 through 1919, the Santa Monica road races turned Ocean Avenue and nearby boulevards into a temporary circuit. The same ocean bluff that drew vacationers gave thousands of spectators a setting for one of early Southern California’s biggest motorsport events.
The first race on Ocean Avenue
The inaugural event took place on July 10, 1909. The Santa Monica History Museum estimates that roughly 50,000 people came out. The course ran along Ocean Avenue, San Vicente Boulevard and what is now Wilshire Boulevard. Racers repeated the same public-road loop for miles, turning familiar intersections into places where drivers had to judge speed, braking and the limits of their machines.
What happened in the 1912 trophy races
On May 4, 1912, Teddy Tetzlaff won the Dick Ferris Trophy in a Fiat after roughly 303 miles. Ralph DePalma won the separate Jepsen Trophy race that day. A riding mechanic often shared the open car with the driver, a detail that makes period images striking. Endurance counted as much as outright pace over a race that lasted hundreds of miles.
From the Vanderbilt Cup to the final race
The circuit hosted the Vanderbilt Cup and the American Grand Prize in 1914 and again in 1916, bringing nationally prominent drivers to the coast. Cliff Durant won the last Santa Monica road race in March 1919 on a shortened course. The streets remained, even as the organized racing moved on. Looking at a map today, Ocean Avenue still offers the clearest starting point for imagining how the event fit the city.
The place in the poster
The Santa Monica Road Race Course poster reimagines the 1912 event with early race cars, coastal palms and a crowd pressed close to the action.
See the Santa Monica Road Race Course poster or browse the Pacific Moderne Travel Posters collection.
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