SURFING TIMELINE
SHACC is home to the Surfing Timeline, a chronological lineup of our collection highlights that represent the evolution of the surfboard. View the Surfing Timeline on permanent exhibit at the SHACC Gallery in San Clemente.
No one can say for sure where surfing first began, but where there’s a coastal dwelling people with waves breaking towards their shoreline, there’s a good possibility that those waves have been ridden somewhere in that location’s history, whether it were fisherman coming to shore or someone surfing merely for the pleasure of it. Rather than try to determine who was the first surfer, we instead choose to present the “modern” history of the sport and culture, starting with the Hawaiians and Peruvians and progressing right up to the present day, through the stories, surfboards, photographs, and artifacts of the last 120 or so years.