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Redondo Beach, California

Redondo Beach is one of the three Beach Cities in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. The population was 66,748 at the 2010 census, up from 63,261 at the 2000 census.

Redondo Beach was originally part of the 1785 Rancho San Pedro Spanish land grant that later became the South Redondo area. The city's territory has an unusual shape including an area along the beach (South Redondo Beach) and another strip inland from Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach (North Redondo Beach). The primary attractions include Municipal Pier and the sandy beach, popular with tourists and a variety of sports enthusiasts. The western terminus of the Metro Rail Green Line is in North Redondo Beach.

The Chowigna Indians used the site of today's Hopkins Wilderness Park, formerly Nike missile site LA-57 from 1956 to 1963, in Redondo Beach, California, as a lookout place.[12] The wetlands located at the site of today's AES power plant in Redondo Beach were a source of foods including halibut, lobster, and sea bass, and also of salt.[13] In the 1700s, the Chowigna bartered salt from the old Redondo Salt Lake, "a spring-fed salt lake about 200 yards wide and 600 yards long situated about 200 yards from the ocean", with other tribes.[14] Their village by the lake was called "Onoova-nga", or "Place of Salt." The Chowigna were relocated to missions in 1854, when Manuel Dominguez sold 215 acres of Rancho San Pedro, including the lake, to Henry Allanson and William Johnson for the Pacific Salt Works.

Moonstone Beach was a tourist attraction from the late 1880s to the early 1920s. Tourists gathered moonstones from the many mounds that had washed ashore during storms.

The Redondo Beach pier is located in Redondo Beach, California and stretches out into the Pacific Ocean. The pier has been rebuilt and altered by storms and redevelopments. Its official name is "Municipal Pier," and it has also been called the "Endless Pier." Earlier versions were known as "Pleasure Pier" and "Horseshoe Pier.

The pier started out as a disjointed group of wharves near the end of the 19th century but evolved into an interconnected structure after a series of storms and demolitions throughout the 20th century. The pier area used to be heavily crowded with tourists and locals during the 1970s, but began to decline after the nearby Seaport Village project failed and went into bankruptcy in 1982.

In 1988, the pier was severely battered by two winter storms, and on May 27 it burned to the waterline due to an electrical short circuit (the fire was so large that a SigAlert was announced for the San Diego Freeway several miles away). The pier's modern reinforced concreteversion was completed in 1995 and has brought back the appeal to Redondo Beach's business district ever since.

Subsequent attempts to resuscitate the area's popularity have been challenged by the need to comply with California Coastal Conservancy regulations, and the concurrent success of redevelopment projects in the two other Beach Cities, Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, and also in the neighboring city of Torrance.

 

 

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Uploaded on December 23, 2018
Taken on September 2, 2018