Hotels
in Long Beach
Hotels in Long Beach are often required for tourisrts who need accommodation in the cioty,. Some tourists may want to have a hokliday where they get to see the landmarks the histroic areas, the culturem, the entertainment and the sports of the city. Some may want to see the beaches. They may want a hotel that has good views and is in a specific location in the city or they may want hotel near the city. They may look for prices, parking facilities, quality, reputation of the hotel when choosing a hotel.
Long Beach is a city located in southern California, USA, on the Pacific coast. It is situated in Los Angeles County, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Long Beach borders Orange County on its southeast edge.
The Port of Long Beach is one of the world's largest shipping ports. The city also has a large oil industry; oil is found both underground and offshore. Manufacturers include aircraft, automobile parts, electronic and audiovisual equipment, and home furnishings. It is also home to headquarters for corporations such as Epson America, Molina Healthcare, and Scan Health Plan. Long Beach has grown with the development of high-technology and aerospace industries in the area.
have lived in coastal southern California for at least ten thousand years. Over the centuries, several successive cultures inhabited the present-day area of Long Beach. By the time Spanish explorers arrived in the 16th century, the dominant group were the Tongva people. They had at least three major settlements within the present day city boundaries. Tevaaxa'anga was an inland settlement near the Los Angeles River, while Ahwaanga and Povuu'nga were coastal villages. Along with other Tongva villages, they disappeared in the mid 1800s due to missionization, political change, and a drastic drop in population from exposure to European diseases.
The Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos were divided from the larger Rancho Los Nietos, which had been granted by the Spanish Empire's, King Carlos III in 1784 to a Spanish soldier, Manuel Nieto. The boundary between the two ranchos ran through the center of Signal Hill on a southwest to northeast diagonal. A portion of western Long Beach was originally part of the Rancho San Pedro, and was in dispute for years, due to flooding changing the Los Angeles River boundary, between Juan Jose Dominguez and Manuel Nieto's ranchos.
Rancho
Los Cerritos was bought in 1843 by John Temple, a Yankee who had come to California
in 1827 . Soon after he built what is now known as the "Los Cerritos Ranch
House," an adobe which still stands and is a National Historic Landmark.
Temple created a thriving cattle ranch and prospered, becoming the wealthiest
man in Los Angeles County. Both Temple and his ranch house played important local
roles in the Mexican-American War.
Long Beach pier, 1905
Meanwhile, on an island in the San Pedro Bay, Mormon pioneers made an abortive attempt to establish a colony (as part of Brigham Young's plan to establish a continuous chain of settlements from the Pacific to Salt Lake).
In
1866 Temple sold Rancho Los Cerritos to the Northern California sheep-raising
firm of Flint, Bixby & Co, which consisted of brothers Thomas and Benjamin
Flint and their cousin Lewellyn Bixby, for $20,000. Two years previous Flint,
Bixby had also purchased along with Northern California associate James Irvine
three ranchos which would later become the city that bears Irvine's name. To manage
Los Cerritos, the company selected Lewellyn's brother Jotham Bixby, the "Father
of Long Beach", to manage their southern ranch, and three years later Jotham
bought into the property and would later form the Bixby Land Company. In the 1870s
as many as 30,000 sheep were kept at the ranch and sheared twice yearly to provide
wool for trade. In 1880, Bixby sold 4,000 acres of the Rancho Los Cerritos to
William E. Willmore, who subdivided it in hopes of creating a farm community,
Willmore City. He failed and was bought out by a Los Angeles syndicate which called
itself the "Long Beach Land and Water Company." They changed the name
of the community to "Long Beach", which was incorporated as a city in
1888.
Overlooked, but probably even more influential in the development of the city was another Bixby cousin, John W. Bixby. After first working for his cousins at Los Cerritos, J.W. Bixby then leased land at Rancho Los Alamitos, and then put together a group consisting of himself, mega-banker I.W. Hellman and Lewellyn and Jotham Bixby to purchase the rancho. In addition to bringing innovative farming methods to the Alamitos (which under Abel Stearns in the late 1850s and early 1860s was once the largest cattle ranch in America), John W. Bixby began the development of the Alamitos' oceanfront property near the city's picturesque bluffs. Under the name Alamitos Land Company, J.W. Bixby named the streets and laid out the parks of his new city. This area would include Belmont Heights, Belmont Shore and Naples and would soon become a very thriving community of its own. Unfortunately, J.W. Bixby died in 1888 of apparent appendicitis, and the Rancho Los Alamitos property was split up with Hellman roughly getting the southern third, Jotham and Lewellyn the northern third and J.W. Bixby's wife and heirs keeping the central third. The Alamitos townsite was kept as a separate entity but it was basically run by Lewellyn and Jotham's Bixby Land Company.
When
Jotham Bixby died in 1916 the remaining 3,500 acres of Rancho Los Cerritos was
subdivided into the neighborhoods of Bixby Knolls, California Heights, North Long
Beach and part of the city of Signal Hill.
The town grew as a seaside resort (The Pike was one of the most famous beachside amusement parks on the West coast from 1902 until the 1960s) and then as an oil, Navy, and port town. The town was once referred to as "Iowa by the sea," due to a large influx of people from that state and other states in the Midwest. Huge picnics for each state were a popular annual event in Long Beach until the 1960s.
The Long Beach earthquake of 1933 was a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that caused significant damage to the city and surrounding areas. Most of the damage occurred in unreinforced masonry buildings, especially schools. One hundred twenty people died in this earthquake.
Long Beach once had a sizable Japanese-American population mostly working in the fish canneries on Terminal Island and small truck farms in the area, but the Japanese and Japanese Americans were removed for internment in 1942, and most did not return after their release from the camps. Due to this, interracial marriage, and other factors, they now make up less than 1 per cent of the population of Long Beach. There is still a Japanese Community Center and a Japanese Buddhist Church in Long Beach. The Japanese-American Cultural Center is just over the Gerald Desmond Bridge and the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro.
Long
Beach is located at 33°47' North, 118°10' West, about 20 miles south of
downtown Los Angeles
Neighborhoods
4th
Street Corridor
Alamitos Beach
Alamitos Heights
Arlington
Belmont
Heights
Belmont Park
Belmont Shore
Bixby Knolls
Bixby Village
Bluff Heights
Bluff Park
Broadway Corridor
California Heights
Carroll Park
Central Area
Craftsman Village
Downtown Long Beach
Drake Park
East Village
Eastside
El Dorado Park
El Dorado Park
Estates
El Dorado South
Hellman
Imperial Estates
Lakewood Village
Cambodia Town (Little
Phnom Penh)
Long Beach Marina
Los Altos
Los Cerritos - Virginia Country
Club
Memorial Heights
Naples
North Long Beach
Park Estates
Peninsula
Ranchos
Rose Park
Shoreline Village
Stearns Park
Saint Mary's
Sunrise
Terminal Island
Traffic Circle
University
Park Estates
Washington School
Westside
Willmore City
Wrigley
North and South
Wrigley Heights
Zaferia
Find a Villa from Across Europe
Grand World Villas - Find a Villa from anywhere in the world
Grand Global Villas - Find Villas from Around the Globe
An Index with links to almost all our sites
Holiday
to - Great places to go on Holiday to
Holiday
to 2 - More Great places to go on Holiday to
Holiday to 3 - More places to go on Holiday to
Holiday to 4 - More places to go on Holiday to
Find some Cottages in Britain or Ireland and the world
Find a Cottage in Britain or Ireland
Find more Cottages in Britain, Ireland, North America or the world