The Bridges of Terminal Island (CA 47, CA 103)

These (rather large) map collages show this route and other important nearby routes in (first image) 1947, 1957 and 1965, as well as (second image) 1976, 1984 and 1999. Click each thumbnail to open individual separate windows for each 150K-plus map graphic and prepare to scroll. ^^ Keep the windows open for reference through the rest of this photoessay.

This exhibit is in the process of reconstruction. Please pardon the older photography.

Much of this new business fell on Terminal Island, so named in 1871. Terminal Island was once known as Rattlesnake Island, a part of the 43,119 acre San Pedro rancho granted to Manuel Dominguez in 1858. (This particular rancho was a den for much of the illegal hide and tallow trade during the Spanish years.) His heirs would sell the island for about $250,000 to a St Louis concern anxious to quash Southern Pacific's threatened railroad shipping monopoly with a competing route. Their new acquisition was passed to the Los Angeles Terminal Railroad Company, which laid track from the east side of the Los Angeles River to their new holding, which they renamed Terminal Island. This relatively primitive crossing was the first of the Terminal Island bridges, circa 1911. Many of these early events are detailed on the Port of Los Angeles timeline.

Unfortunately, by the 1920s, not much more had happened to improve getting to and from the island. For decades, private ferry service would remain the primary manner of getting workers, residents, goods and supplies back and forth, starting with a single rowboat in the 1870s up to a regular municipal ferry service to the San Pedro 6th St wharf in 1941. (This municipal service cost five cents each way, operating a morning auto and pedestrian ferry and then a second pedestrian-only wooden ferry that operated in the evenings.) As more companies moved their operations to the railroad terminus on the island, the demand for a more reliable crossing increased and paved the way for the construction of the Henry Ford Bridge in 1924. Designed by Joseph Baermann Strauss, who also designed San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and over 400 other structures, the Henry Ford Bridge used a so-called bascule, or quasi-drawbridge, structure to facilitate sufficient clearance for passing military and cargo ships (exceptional archival footage of the bridge's operation is shown on the Port of Los Angeles Virtual History Tour). Modifications to the bridge in the late 1930s replaced one of the sets of track with roadway to allow auto traffic, but this became a serious liability when the local shipyards were running at full swing during World War II. A temporary swing bridge was added to the Ford Bridge in 1941 pending the construction of a new and modern vertical-lift bridge with additional capacity alongside the Henry Ford in 1946: the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Lift Bridge, depicted alongside the drawbridge-like Henry Ford "Badger Avenue" Bridge in the Port of Los Angeles archival photograph at right.

The Heim Bridge heralded the beginning of the third generation (the earliest crossing and the Henry Ford Bridge being the preceding two) of the island's bridges. Dramatically increased vehicular traffic, as well as cargo ship size, would dictate the need for larger span and higher clearance crossings, from which came the famous Vincent Thomas Bridge in 1963, and the Gerald Desmond Bridge in 1968 (replacing the earlier pontoon bridge between Long Beach and the island). With the destruction of the Henry Ford Bridge in 1996, replaced by a new liftbridge railroad extension to the Heim Bridge, this new generation of bridges represents the only link to the tumultuous history of the island and thus becomes the chief subject of this photoessay.

This area is covered by several primary routes, most notably I-110 (then old CA 11), I-710 (old CA 7), CA 47 and CA 103. When first created after the Great Renumbering in 1964, CA 47 came off CA 7 (which then ran along Seaside Parkway to then-CA 11) at the present-day "47-103" junction to run north along the Terminal Island Freeway, built starting in 1948. Then as today, the Terminal Island Fwy terminated at Willow St; the freeway was supposed to continue ultimately to the future I-10 ultimately as the Industrial Fwy, but was never built. In 1965, the portion of CA 7 between CA 11 and CA 47 was also given to CA 47. By 1982, CA 47 was moved to Henry Ford Avenue and Alameda Streets past the Heim Bridge, and what was left of the Terminal Island Fwy given to CA 103, a newly freed up route number after it was obliterated in San Diego by I-15. CA 103 north of CA 1 was later deleted, cutting the route down even more (but not relinquished, earning the designation "103U"). At least one proposal had CA 47 heading north as freeway directly from Terminal Island, not from the Heim Bridge; this seems to be indicated by the current signage (below). However, even though proposed as freeway its whole length, CA 47 presently remains on a primarily surface-street alignment -- save this short segment of freeway -- up to its eventual northern terminus.