The steeply graded road connecting the top of the Santa Monica cliffs to the beach is known as the California Incline. I’m used to it being an always-busy, two-lane roadway with a separated path for pedestrians and cyclists. So it’s a little jarring to see it as just a dirt path leading down to a railway line. The Southern Pacific Railroad operated along those tracks between the Los Angeles and the aptly named Long Wharf, which we can see jutting out into the water. The other major difference is how narrow the beach was back then. These days it’s probably twice a wide.

I thought the auto-colorizer did a pretty good job bringing this scene to life.

This is how the California Incline looked in July 2022.