ICONS

“Let’s Go ‘Nowhere’ Tonight!” In the ‘30s, that invitation was emblazoned on posters from Orange County to Oxnard and from Pasadena to Santa Monica. Innocuous as it sounds, some considered it an invitation to Southern California’s own annex to hell--the gambling ship City of Panama. One of the most notorious ships in the “dolls, drinks and dice” fleet, the floating casino was just one incarnation in the colorful career of the ship ultimately known as the Star of Scotland.

Launched in 1918 in Scotland as the Mistletoe, it acted as a Royal Navy decoy to lure enemy U-boats to the surface, where they could be blasted by hidden guns. After the war, it was sold, renamed Chiapas and put to work carrying freight and passengers between Central America and San Francisco. In the early ‘30s, as the La Playa, it began offering “Cruises to Nowhere” while docked at Ensenada. Under this name and four others, the ship earned a reputation infamous even among the excesses that characterized the coastal gambling ships.

When Mexico closed its borders to gambling in the early 1930s, the ship’s owners shifted operations to San Pedro. A short time later, the ship was sold, renamed City of Panama and sent to join the gambling fleet that anchored, legally, about three miles offshore in Santa Monica Bay. The murder of a passenger in 1933 ended the ship’s tenure off Santa Monica, and for the next six years it migrated up and down the coast--same business, different names.

August, 1939, found it once again operating off Santa Monica, this time as the Texas. When state Atty. Gen. Earl Warren moved to drive the gambling ships out of California waters, city and state officials quickly shut it down. (Attempts to close another gambling ship, the Rex, resulted in a full-blown siege that came to be known as the Battle of Santa Monica Bay.)

In 1940, the Texas, renamed Star of Scotland, was once again afloat off Santa Monica, this time as a fishing barge. Then, on until Jan. 23, 1942, heavy seas forced the ship to the bottom just two miles off Santa Monica Pier. Today the wreck lies in 70 feet of murky water, the premier artificial reef in the bay. Home to myriad fish and sea creatures, it is a major point of interest to divers and fishermen.

After nearly half a century under water, there’s still a lot of life in the old steamer’s staterooms.