PORT OF LOS ANGELES: Celebrates 100th Anniversary, THE
Lundquist, Edward
THE PORT OF LOS ANGELES: Celebrates 100th Anniversary By Michael D. White 130 pgs, 200 photos, 6.5-in x 9.25-in, Paperback, ISBN: 13-978-0-7385-5609-3 – $19.95. Arcadia Publishing, Mt. Pleasant, SC; 888 313-2665; www.arcadiapublishing.com
Mention Los Angeles and what usually comes to mind? Disneyland? Hollywood? The Lakers? Aircraft production? Smog? Everything but ships. No, the average American does not usually associate ships and shipping with Los Angeles. Yet the truth is Los Angeles Harbor some time ago surpassed New York and San Francisco as the largest and busiest port in the United States! Using the occasion of the port’s 100th anniversary as the inspiration for his new book, author Michael D. White, former editor of World Trade Magazine, weaves a fascinating and illuminating tale of the port’s development in well-chosen words and pictures.
From its humble beginnings as little more than a lone wharf bordering on a labyrinth of mudflats, White traces the unstinting influence of early tradesmen like Phineas Banning and Stephen M. White, plus many others who fought the moneyed interests of Colis Huntington’s Southern Pacific Railroad to create a viable port in Los Angeles’ San Pedro Harbor in the late 1890s. Buoyed by the staggering growth of the west coast’s oil and lumber industries, the Port of Los Angeles was officially established in 1907 and has enjoyed tremendous growth and development ever since. White’s selection of many never-before-seen photos garnered from prestigious historic collections progressively demonstrates exactly how the port expanded to meet the ever-changing needs of seaborne commerce in peace and war.
With very informative copy leading into each chapter, White shows how the press of westward migration aided southern California’s fishing, transportation, travel and shipping industries to gradually forge America’s most amazing transportation and industrial complex. This is a small, easily handled book that tells a very big story in a most compelling manner.
Reviewed by Capt. Edward Lundquist,
US Navy (Ret.) Senior Science Advisor, Alion Science and Technology
Copyright Challenge Publications Inc. May 2008
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
