Early History (1911-1960s)
The Port of Long Beach was founded on 800 acres (3.2 km2) of mudflats on June 24, 1911 at the mouth of the Los Angeles River. In 1917, the first Board of Harbor Commissioners formed to supervise harbor operations. Due to the booming economy, Long Beach voters approved a $5 million bond to improve the inner and outer harbor. By the late 1920s, more than one million tons of cargo were handled along with construction of additional piers to accommodate the growing business.
In 1921, oil was discovered at the Long Beach Oil Field on and around Signal Hill. In 1932, the fourth-largest oil field in the United States, Wilmington Oil Field, was discovered; much of this field was underneath Long Beach and the harbor area itself. The hundreds of oil wells from Wilmington Oil Field provided oil revenues to the City and Port of Long Beach. The first offshore oil well in the harbor was brought online in 1937, shortly after the discovery that the oil field far extended into the harbor. In the mid 1930s, the port was expanded, largely due to the need to transport oil to foreign markets, as the immense output of oil from the Los Angeles Basin caused a glut in U.S. markets.
The extraction of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil caused concern for subsidence as the overlying land collapsed into the empty space over time. Engineers and geologists were promptly assigned to the problem, building dikes for flood control at high tide.
In 1946, after World War II, the Port of Long Beach was established as "America’s most modern port" with the completion of the first of nine clear-span transit sheds.
Concerns regarding subsidence increased until Operation "Big Squirt," a water injection program, halted any progression of sinking land in 1960.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)