Located approximately an hour south of downtown Los Angeles, the City of Long Beach has been consistently considered to be among the most prominent cities in Southern California. Its history is quite extensive, harkening back centuries. Although the indigenous Tongva people once inhabited the land generations ago, Long Beach’s direct origins relate to a historic land grant known as the “Rancho Los Nietos.” Measuring 167,000 acres in total size, King Carlos III of Spain had specifically given the concession to colonial soldier Manuel Nieto during the mid-1780s. Nieto subsequently governed over the expanse of land for many years with his descendants inheriting the area upon his death in 1804. But the Nieto family would encounter trouble maintaining the territory throughout the early 19th century, prompting them to find ways to reduce their liability. In the 1830s, the Nietos convinced California’s then-Mexican governor José Figueroa to subdivide it into five smaller estates. Figueroa in turn had centered the boundaries for two of those newly created land grants, Rancho Los Cerritos, and Rancho Los Alamitos, along the central axis of Signal Hill in present-day Long Beach.   

While Rancho Los Alamitos was slightly larger, it was Rancho Los Cerritos that would come to constitute most of Long Beach’s current borders. Rancho Los Cerritos had been given to administrator Guillermo Cota and his family by José Figueroa in 1834. The estate remained under the control of the Cota family for the next ten years until Cota’s daughter Rafaela married an American-born rancher named Juan Temple. (Temple was actually born “Jonathan,” but changed his first name after becoming a Mexican citizen during the 1820s.) Temple cultivated a prosperous cattle ranch that quickly elevated him into one of the richest people in the area. To commemorate his great financial success, he proceeded to build a gorgeous adobe residence known as the “Casa de los Cerritos”, or “Los Cerritos Ranch House”, in the middle of the massive estate. (This iconic destination still exists today as a fascinating house museum and cherished U.S. National Historic Landmark.) Nevertheless, Rancho Los Cerritos continued to operate under the care of Juan Temple and Rafaela Cota for the next two decades, even surviving the United States’ acquisition of the Alta California region amid the Mexican American War.   

Temple decided to divest himself of Rancho Los Cerritos though, selling the location to livestock business Flint, Bixby & Company for $20,000 after the American Civil War. Managed by brothers Thomas and Benjamin Flint, as well as their cousin, Lewellyn Bixby, Flint, Bixby & Company reoriented the Rancho Los Cerritos to host a herd of some 30,000 sheep. Despite its own prosperity, Flint, Bixby & Company sold around 4,000 acres of the estate to fellow agriculturalist William E. Willmore, who intended to use it to create a farming community called “Willmore City.” Unfortunately for Willmore, significant economic headwinds prevented him from making the endeavor a success and he sold the rights to a Los Angeles-based syndicate called the “Long Beach Land and Water Company.” The corporation then initiated a thorough construction project within the town throughout the 1880s and 1890s, renaming it “Long Beach” in the process. The effort proved to be wise, because the new residential and commercial structures began attracting hundreds of new people from across the country. In fact, Long Beach had even grown large enough to become an official city in 1897.   

Much of Long Beach’s appeal stemmed not from its initial pastoral nature, but the serene environment that encompassed it. Indeed, the area’s perennially beautiful weather and azure shoreline combined to create a tranquil atmosphere that many people yearned to experience. Long Beach earned a reputation as a popular vacation destination by the beginning of the early 20th century. Long Beach’s proximity to Los Angeles soon made it an important industrial center as well, especially for the manufacture of automobiles and aircraft. Refineries came to dot portions of its skyline following the discovery of oil within Signal Hill in the 1920s. Amazingly, the city’s oil industry endured for decades, with its Wilmington Oil Field emerging as the fourth largest in the United States during the buildup to World War II. Perhaps Long Beach's greatest economic quality was the bustling port that developed right off the coast. Entertaining hundreds of ships annually, the harbor gradually emerged as the second busiest container port in the country. Long Beach remains one of California’s most prestigious cities, featuring a robust economy and vibrant identity. Cultural heritage travelers will find its diverse variety of attractions enticing, such as the Aquarium of the Pacific, The Queen Mary maritime museum, and Los Cerritos Ranch House. 

The historic Cunard Line originally designed the distinctive RMS Queen Mary as one of two near-identical ocean liners meant to provide weekly express trips between Western Europe and the United States. Competition from newer, more luxurious ocean liners, like the German Bremen and the French Normandie, posed a significant risk to the Cunard Line’s profitability. To that end, the company commissioned its lead architect, George McLeod Paterson, to design the RMS Queen Mary and its sibling, the RMS Queen Elizabeth, toward the end of the 1920s. Construction subsequently began at the start of the following decade within the docks of prominent British shipbuilder, John Brown & Company. Work specifically commenced on the RMS Queen Mary in 1930 and lasted for four years, although economic hardships caused by the Great Depression had halted production for a time. The sprawling vessel had come to eclipse the whole shipyard, as its 78,000-metric-ton frame gradually took shape. In fact, the ship’s hull had grown so large that engineers had to artificially widen the river within which it sat! Costing 3.5 million pounds at the time, the Cunard Line truly spared no expense completing the project. Ten million rivets held together the massive ship’s stunning steel superstructure, while three elliptical smokestacks and two towering masts majestically loomed over its outer deck.  

Brilliantly crafted handrails, railings, and ladders further proliferated throughout the RMS Queen Mary, as did beautiful woodwork made from 50 species of distinctive tree found throughout the British Empire. For instance, more than 1,000 tons of rare Burmese teak had been used to create the wooden decks due to their good endurance! However, the naval engineers assigned to the project had also taken the opportunity to outfit the ship with state-of-the-art products like cutting-edge bakelite plastics and superimposed linoleum tiling. (Set upon a base of cork, the tiling subsequently negated the sound of footsteps to the point where they were nearly nonexistent.) The interior of the ship was arrayed in 12 distinctive levels titled A through H, which featured such amazing amenities like four specialty restaurants, two libraries, a full-service spa, a massive gymnasium, a shopping area, a hospital, and religious centers. Among the most distinctive public facilities created within the ship included the resplendent Verandah Grill, the spacious Promenade Deck, and the semicircular Observation Bar with its Macassar ebony panels. The RMS Queen Mary was hailed as an engineering masterpiece when it debuted in the mid-1930s. Hailed as one of the most sophisticated vessels of its era, its eclectic appearance would go on to entrance thousands of passengers from across the world over the next several decades.  

The interior of the RMS Queen Mary showcases a stunning array of Art Deco-inspired architectural motifs. Art Deco is still one of the most famous architectural styles in the world. The form originally emerged from an architectural desire to break with past precedents. Instead, professionals within the field aspired to forge their own design principles based on modern concepts. More importantly, they hoped that their ideas would better reflect the technological advances of the modern age. Historians today often consider Art Deco to be a part of the much wider proliferation of cultural “Modernism” that first appeared at the dawn of the 20th century. Art Deco as a style first became popular in 1922, when Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen submitted the first blueprints to feature the form for contest to develop the headquarters of the Chicago Tribune. While his vision did not win over the judges, they were widely publicized. Architects in North America and Europe soon raced to copy his form in their own unique ways, giving birth to the Art Deco movement. In fact, the international embrace of Art Deco had risen so quickly that it was even the central theme of the renowned Exposition des Art Decoratifs in Paris a few years later. Professionals the world over fell in love with Art Deco’s sleek, linear appearance, defined by a series of sharp setbacks. They adored its geometric decorations that featured such motifs as chevrons and zigzags. But despite the deep admiration people felt toward Art Deco, interest in the style gradually dissipated throughout the mid-20th century. Nevertheless, many examples of Art Deco architecture survive today, with some of the best located in such places as New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles.