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. Fishermen, young and old, at the Belmont Pier in Long Beach during the last moments of sunset. The Queen Mary (left of center) and Island Grissom (right) are seen against the background of the Long Beach Harbor and the hill of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, November 1975.
Type
image
Format
1 slide : color ; 5x5 cm. Photographic color slides
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