SAN PEDRO HARBOR 



CAPT. AMOS A. FRIBS 

 Corpa of Englneera, United Statea Army 



THE harbor at San Pedro is vitally necessary to the full growth not only 

 of Los Angeles and vicinity but of the entire State. Being in only 

 a minor degree a natural harbor, it is a product, almost in its entirety, 

 of human skill and labor, Illustrating the maximum that "necessity 

 is the mother of Invention." An anchorage which struggled for rec- 

 ognition in Pacific Coast commerce for a century past has now become 

 through a liberal government expenditure one of the most efficient ports 

 on our western front. 



The improvements with which the government has had mainly to do 

 consist of the breakwater and a deepening of the inner harbor. The break- 

 water is now eighty-five per cent completed and represents a total expend- 

 iture to date of somewhat over $2,300,000. The appropriation by Congress 

 for this purpose is $2,900,000. 



The finished breakwater will be nine thousand feet in length. It will 

 have a footing on the sea floor of two hundred feet in width, and its deepest 

 portion will stand in fifty-four feet of water. The substructure to date has 

 required nearly 2,000,000 long tons of stone, and 8,500 feet of it is prac- 

 tically completed, already affording ample protection to a large fleet of 

 vessels, and protecting the mouth of the inner harbor from the southeast 

 storms. The superstructure has been completed for a length of over 

 6,800 feet. 



In the inner harbor 827,000 cubic yards of sand and clay were dredged 

 out by suction dredge during the year ending June 30, 1907, at a cost of 

 $66,600, and utilized in reclaiming land along the sea shore just outside 

 the east jetty. This part of the work is more than half completed. Since 

 the dredging work was begun in April, 1905, about 1,800,000 cubic yards 

 have been dredged from the inner harbor by the Government dredge at a 

 cost of about $143,000, exclusive of the first cost of the dredge, which was 

 about $118,000. 



The San Pedro breakwater ranks among the biggest undertakings of 

 its class in the world, exceeding in size either the Delaware breakwater or 

 the Galveston seawall. It provides a smooth anchorage of about 650 acres 

 where previously the southeast ocean storms lashed the coast without 

 hindrance. The efficient port thus created lies nearer than any other of 

 our Pacific Coast harbors to the great manufacturing and agricultural 

 sections of the Middle West. Its adequate improvement, coincident with 

 the great and rapid development of the Pacific Ocean traffic, opens before 

 it a career heretofore hardly conceived. 



In the past there has not been available more than half the dockage 

 room needed at San Pedro to accommodate the vessels reaching that port. 

 Ships were compelled to wait for dockage room from three days to two 

 weeks. As an illustration of the growing traffic, the lumber receipts alone 

 mounted to 475,000,000 feet for the year 1906. Three railways now have 

 terminals at San Pedro. These are the Southern Pacific, the Salt Lake, and 

 the Pacific Electric, with a fourth, the Santa Fe, but a few miles distant. 

 The expenditures of the Government have been heretofore but slightly 

 supplemented by private enterprise, but work now under way or planned by 

 private enterprise for increasing dockage facilities and reclaiming land in 

 both the inner and outer harbor indicates a full appreciation of the benefits 

 made available for this section by the work the Government has done. 

 Already the city of San Pedro has developed a rapid growth in response to 

 the stimulus afforded by its new harbor facilities, and there is every reason 

 ^to look for a vigorous expansion in the years to come. 



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