Islands
Natural islands in San Pedro Bay include Terminal Island (actually an augmented mudflat), the site of much of Los Angeles' and Long Beach's port facilities, and Mormon Island, the site of an abortive settlement attempt by San Bernardino-based Mormon pioneers in the 1850s. Land reclamation operations by Los Angeles have considerably enlarged Terminal Island, as well as linking Mormon Island to the mainland. The historic Deadman's Island sat at a landmark at the foot of the Bay, but was removed in 1928 as part of the effort to enlarge the harbor.
Four small artificial islands containing oil wells are scattered around the bay near Long Beach. The oil drilling equipment itself is masked by tropical landscaping, architectural features and fake high-rise "buildings" in an attempt to improve their appearance from shore. These islands, named Oil Islands Freeman, Grissom, White, and Chaffee, are named for Theodore Freeman, the first United States NASA astronaut to die during flight, and for Virgil I. Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee, who were killed by a fire during the Apollo One mission.
Read more about this topic: San Pedro Bay (California)
Famous quotes containing the word islands:
“What are the islands to me
if you are lost
what is Naxos, Tinos, Andros,
and Delos, the clasp
of the white necklace?”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)