Moreton Bay Fig Tree

Stop at the corner and look at this enormous tree. That's a Moreton Bay fig — a species from Australia — and the shade it throws is almost absurd: a canopy spreading well over a hundred and fifty feet, held up by roots that buttress out of the ground like the flanks of something alive. It's believed to be the largest of its kind in the whole United States.

And its story is pure Santa Barbara luck. Back in eighteen seventy-six, an Australian sailor gave a little seedling to a local girl, who planted it. About a year later a woman named Adeline Crabb dug it up and replanted it right here, on this corner — on land that soon belonged to the railroad. She had no way of knowing she was planting a giant.

Think about the timing. When this seedling went into the ground, the wharf was only four years old and the trains hadn't come yet. This tree is older than the railroad, older than the resort, older than the harbor — older than almost everything we're walking to. It sat at the very edge of town, right where the tracks ran, and watched the whole waterfront grow up around it.

So it's a good place to reset the clock. From here on, the town gets scruffier, cheaper, and more honest — because we're about to cross into the one part of the waterfront the red-tile makeover never touched.

Head back east, taking Montecito toward the Funk Zone, and watch for the corner of Yanonali and Anacapa.