The Demise of Dead Man's Island, Lost Landmark of L.A.'s Harbor | KCET
Title
The Demise of Dead Man's Island, Lost Landmark of L.A.'s Harbor
With a name like Dead Man's Island, you might think that the small protrusion of rock was doomed all along. But the tiny island at the entrance to the San Pedro harbor was so steeped in romantic lore that many Southern Californians -- powerless to stop the dynamite and steam shovels -- greeted its demise in 1928 with sorrow.
Dead Man's Island was named for the shallow graves dug into its flat top. Various legends give different accounts of who was buried first: the last male survivor of San Nicolas Island, an Indian named Black Hawk; an English sailor who died while anchored at San Pedro; a smuggler who washed ashore on the island and died there of thirst or hunger. No one knows for certain which (if any) is true, but it's clear that by the 1830s the local, Spanish-speaking population knew the outcrop as Isla de Los Muertos.
In photos, it appears deceptively small; in fact, it measured at least 800 feet long and 250 feet wide. Rising 55 feet above the surface and separated from the San Pedro bluffs by nearly a mile of open water, Dead Man's Island was the bay's most conspicuous landform -- one that stood out from the mudflats, sandbars, and marshes that made up Los Angeles River estuary. It became something of a landmark for sailors anchored nearby.
Richard Henry Dana spied it from his ship, the Pilgrim, in 1835. "It was always a solemn and interesting spot to me," he wrote in "Two Years Before the Mast." "There it stood, desolate and in the midst of desolation; and there were the remains of one who died and was buried alone and friendless. It was the only thing in California from which I could ever extract anything like poetry." Needless to say, Dana hated his time in San Pedro.
During the Mexican-American War, the island accepted more corporeal deposits. Six American sailors and marines killed in the Battle of Dominguez Rancho -- often known by the more colorful name, the Battle of the Old Woman's Gun -- were interred on the island in October 1846. Later, two more bodies joined them, and by 1858 as many as eleven bodies called the tiny island home. According to early Los Angeles historian James Guinn, the island became San Pedro's cemetery of choice since a narrow channel of open water protected it from scavenging coyotes.
Eventually, the towns of San Pedro and Wilmington grew on the mainland, and a more proper onshore burial round replaced the island, which briefly became a whaling station. Later, engineers incorporated Dead Man's Island into the infrastructure of Los Angeles' artificial harbor, building a long rock jetty from the landmark to Rattlesnake Island, a sandy spit of land now known as Terminal Island. The jetty amplified the natural tidal action of the estuary, using the flow of water to carve a deep shipping channel between the island and the mainland.
Unfortunately, those tidal forces also started carving away at the island itself. As crumbling rock exposed buried coffins, the bodies were moved -- the six servicemen to the Presidio in San Francisco, and the civilians to San Pedro's Harbor View Cemetery.
As part of a program of extensive harbor improvements, the U.S. government decided to remove the island wholesale in 1928. Using its 2.3 million cubic yards of rock and dirt, the government would fill in the surrounding area, build a customhouse, coast guard station, and prison atop the reclaimed land, and rename the site Reservation Point.
Eight dredgers and a steam shovel chipped away at the historic rock for two years, augmenting their mechanical power with some 20 train car loads of dynamite and blasting powder. If Southern Californians mourned the historic island's passing, they at least were pragmatic about its demolition. Throughout the entire process, an archaeologist from the Southwest Museum was on hand to scour the remains for fossils and artifacts from the island's storied past.
L.A. as Subject is an association of more than 230 libraries, museums, official archives, cultural institutions, and private collectors. Hosted by the USC Libraries, L.A. as Subject is dedicated to preserving and telling the sometimes-hidden stories and histories of the Los Angeles region.
Support the Articles you Love
We are dedicated to providing you with articles like this one. Show your support with a tax-deductible contribution to KCET. After all, public media is meant for the public. It belongs to all of us.
Keep Reading
-
For the last 30 years, El Nopal Press has intentionally been a studio where artists can experiment with printmaking. Some of the most provocative artistic pieces and innovations have come from the studio’s collaborations with women.
-
Enter to win tickets to the December 18 performance of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake at the Ahmanson Theatre.
-
What truly matters? Ali Behdad, professor of literature; Kristy Edmunds, artist and curator; and Michael Eselun, chaplain for the Simms-Mann/UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology discuss the important things in life.
-
After the screening, KCET Cinema Series host Pete Hammond sat down with director Jay Roach.
- 1 of 225
- next ›
Full Episodes
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E1: Griffith Park - The Untold History
Season 4, Episode 1
Griffith Park is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. Its founder, Griffith J. Griffith, donated the land to the city as a public recreation ground for all the people — an ideal that has been challenged over the years.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E2: Three Views of Manzanar - Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake
Season 4, Episode 2
During World War II, three renowned photographers captured scenes from the Japanese incarceration: outsiders Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams and incarceree Tōyō Miyatake who boldly smuggled in a camera lens to document life from within the camp.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E3: Bootlegger Tunnels - A Journey Through LA’s Prohibition Lore
Season 4, Episode 3
Prohibition may have outlawed liquor, but that didn’t mean the booze stopped flowing. Explore the myths of subterranean Los Angeles, crawl through prohibition-era tunnels, and visit some of the city’s oldest speakeasies.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E4: Paul Revere Williams - An African-American Architect in Jet-Age L.A.
Season 4, Episode 4
Although best known for designing the homes of celebrities like Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra, the pioneering African-American architect Paul Revere Williams also contributed to some of the city’ s most recognizable civic structures.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E5: Discovering the Universe - Exploring the Cosmos Atop Mount Wilson
Season 4, Episode 5
As recently as a century ago, scientists doubted whether the universe extended beyond our own Milky Way — until astronomer Edwin Hubble, working with the world’s most powerful telescope discovered just how vast the universe is.
- 1 of 5
- next ›
Comments