The ride is over: Morro Bay Skateboard Museum ends 8-year run
It’s the end of the ride for the Morro Bay Skateboard Museum.
The museum, which opened eight years ago, was the product of a local man’s passion for the sport that he took up as a teenager in the 1970s.
Museum founder Jack Smith confirmed Monday that the museum will permanently close, saying it was a move he’d pondered even before the coronavirus pandemic shut operations down amid shelter-at-home orders.
“This decision wasn’t based on the coronavirus (impacts),” the 63-year-old Morro Bay resident said. “My wife and I just decided we wanted to have some time to do other things.”
Smith, who hosted Morro Bay’s first skateboarding contest in 1975, said that he initially wanted to open a coffee shop with skateboard memorabilia.
But after talking it over with his wife, he opted to start a skateboard museum because he “didn’t know anything about coffee.”
“At first people thought it would be all kids, but it turned out a lot of older people were really interested in coming here,” Smith said. “About 90% of the visitors were tourists. We had people from all over the world visit. People would come in speaking different languages. It was great.”
Skateboard museum was top tourism draw
Smith said that the museum, which moved to 783 Market Ave. last year from its former location on Embarcadero, featured 300 skateboards and documented the history of the sport and its cultural impact.
The museum currently ranks as the fifth top attraction in Morro Bay, according to travel website Tripadvisor.com. The Morro Bay Skate Park is listed as second on the site, indicating the popularity of the sport.
Smith said the shop attracted many former professional skateboarders over the years — including Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta, a museum sponsor.
For more than six years, the museum showcased a 12-foot-long, 500-pound skateboard on loan from Foundation Skateboards, a San Diego-based company.
Kids and adults often took pictures standing on the massive board, Smith said.
“Six months ago, we gave it back to Foundation Skateboards,” he said. “They asked me if they could borrowed it back and I said ‘Sure, it’s your board.’ We had it for almost seven years.”
Morro Bay museum highlighted history of skateboarding
Other items featured at the museum included a 1925 knee coaster, which looks like a sled. People rode knee coasters while kneeling, but they functioned similarly to skateboards, Smith said.
Smith said skateboarding took off in the 1970s with the introduction of the urethane wheel.
“Skateboards existed in the 1960s, but the performance became so much better in the ’70s,” Smith said.
Visitors of the museum often commented on the rudimentary boards they grew up riding, and Smith would track down a model of their era.
“People would say I grew up riding on a two-by-four with roller skates and steel wheels and they’d say ‘I bet you don’t have that,’ ” Smith said. “I could go show them one of those and they’d light up.
“And if I could get guys in their 40s and 50s and 60s talking long enough, often we ended up knowing some of the same people or have skated in the same park, same ditch, same pool, whether they were from Pennsylvania or Australia.”
Slalom races and skateboarding journeys
Smith, who moved to Morro Bay at the age of 15, hosted slalom races in Morro Bay in the early to mid-2000s.
The events, essentially downhill competitions, attracted up to 130 racers from 15 or 20 countries at its peak, Smith said. In recent years, he coordinated mile-long push races in the city.
Smith crossed the country four times on push skateboards — completing a journey in 2003 to raise money for Lowe syndrome, the disease that took the life of his son, Jack Marshall Smith, that year.
Then Smith completed a journey on an electric skateboard in 2018 that he previosly halted midway through in 2016. His experiences garnered a visit from representatives of the Smithsonian Museum, who collected two of his boards for an oral history on skateboarding.
“If you would have told me at 17 that two of my skateboards would end up at the Smithsonian, I never would have believed you,” Smith said.
He said his skateboard museum was one of only a few in the United States and the world.
It was funded through donations and sponsorship. Smith did not charge museum admission.
Shoe company Vans funded the museum’s rent at in 2019 and the company signed on again in 2020, but Smith said the museum won’t need the sponsorship for the rest of the year with its closure at the city-owned building.
He’ll tape a virtual walk-through of the museum before it’s officially closed.
Smith said he has been enjoying the downtime while the museum has closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has been talking walks throughout the North Coast with his wife.
“My wife and I have walked every street throughout the city of Morro Bay for 16 days, covering 62 miles,” said Smith, who has three grown children. “It has been great.”
This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 3:26 PM.
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