Nestled at the edge of China Cove and overlooking the Newport Bay entrance channel is a small, white-and-terracotta building, with pillars on the second-floor balcony reminiscent of Spanish Missions or rancheros, and a short, lighthouse-like tower. Only the keen-eyed beachgoer or a Caltech marine biology student would know this site is more than a gem of 1920s Mission revival architecture: it is the William G. Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory, a hotspot of scientific research for nearly a century.

This site served as a boat and bathhouse for the Balboa Palisades Yacht Club from its construction in 1926 until Thomas Hunt Morgan, founder of Caltech’s Division of Biology, purchased the building, in 1929, with generous funds from William G. Kerckhoff, a millionaire, businessman and philanthropist.

Beachgoers at China Cove, as well as down the channel at Corona del Mar State Beach and Little Corona del Mar, are likely to find shells and sea urchin tests (hard, external, pin cushion-shaped skeletons which come in beautiful shades of green and purple) – indicators of the diverse marine life that flourishes just off the coast of Newport Beach. Much of the laboratory’s research has focused, and continues to focus on, sea urchins – alive, they are also a familiar sight in the tide pools at Little Corona: as small, purple, spiny spheres which often wedge themselves into small crevices and caves. From 1957 onward, Wheeler J. North studied sea urchins for their significance within the coastal marine environment of Southern California, making significant strides in our understanding of the natural environment and its preservation.

At the time of the Laboratory’s founding, Thomas Morgan, however, focused his studies on more often-overlooked, soft-bodied animals: tunicates (also called “sea squirts”) of the genus Ciona. Additionally, five species of marine polychaetae worms were first discovered and documented at Corona del Mar.

Whether for their scientific value or for their beauty, marine animals and shells have attracted the attention of humans for thousands of years. The Sherman Library today holds several books on California marine life and history, and in its archives, preserves the shell collection of the Dawson family. Ernest Dawson was the founder of Dawson’s Book Shop in Los Angeles in 1905. He spent much of his free time mountaineering, and even served as a director of the Sierra Club in the 1920s and 30s. Dawson’s small but extensive collection, which contains a bit of everything from massive Florida conches to fragile dried brittle stars and pipefish from California, stands as an indicator of humanity’s enduring and varied interest with the beauty and intricate workings of the natural world, as well as an example of how these interests have taken root and flourished in our local communities.