Title supplied by cataloger. THUMS, a consortium made up of Texaco, Humble Oil, Union Oil, Mobile Oil and Shell Oil companies, built four artificial oil islands in Long Beach in 1965 at an estimated cost of $22 million dollars each to disguise their offshore oil drilling operations. Joseph Linesch, known as a theme park architect, designed towers to act as sound barriers and to provide attractive multi-colored lighting at night. Each island was later named in memory of a fallen astronaut: Island Freeman for Theodore C. Freeman, Island White for Edward H. White II, Island Grissom for Virgil I. Grissom, and Island Chaffee for Roger B. Chaffee. Occidental Petroleum purchased the THUMS consortium in 2000, but 14 years later offloaded their assets into the California Resources Corporation (CRC), whose THUMS Long Beach Company currently oversees the islands. A beachgoer with an aluminum webbed folding chair looks out towards Island White in Long Beach, November 1975.
Type
image
Format
1 slide : color ; 5x5 cm. Photographic color slides
Beachgoers Beaches Folding chairs Artificial islands Petroleum industry and trade Oil well drilling rigs Offshore oil well drilling Palms Long Beach (Calif.) Pacific Ocean
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
