LUDB: state: CA

A-1 Tow Yard

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The A-1 Tow Yard near Barstow is the location of the Tired Iron Museum, a display of homemade terminator vehicles built by Ed and Greg Parker. The Parker family operates an auto repair and towing shop here, and created these functional desert art cars mostly out of breakdowns and wrecks towed off the interstate. Some have been featured in post-apocalyptic "B-movies," which are frequently filmed in the area.

Abandoned Solar Power Plant

Sun, 3 Mar 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The remote Carrizo Plain's status as one of the sunniest places in the state was exploited by the solar power industry from 1983 to 1994. This was by far the largest photovoltaic array in the world, with 100,000 1'x 4' photovoltaic arrays producing 5.2 megawatts at its peak. The plant was originally constructed by the Atlantic Richfield oil company (ARCO) in 1983. During the energy crisis of the late 1970s, ARCO became a solar energy pioneer, manufacturing the photovoltaic arrays themselves. ARCO first built a 1 megawatt pilot operation, the Lugo plant in Hesperia, California, which is also now closed. The Carrizo Solar Corporation, based in Albuquerque, NM, bought the two facilities from ARCO in 1990. But the price of oil never rose as was predicted, so the solar plant never became competitive with fossil fuel-based energy production (Carrizo sold its electricity to the local utility for between three and four cents a kilowatt-hour, while a minimum price of eight to ten cents a kilowatt-hour would be necessary in order for Carrizo to make a profit). Another photovoltaic facility was planned for the site by the Chatsworth Utility Power Group, and with an output of 100 megawatts it would have been many times larger than the existing facility. But the facility never got off the drawing board. The Carrizo Solar Company dismantled its 177-acre facility in the late 1990s, and the used panels are still being resold throughout the world.

Aerospace Corporation

Sun, 3 Mar 2002 00:00:00 GMT

This is a densely developed 41-acre compound near the Los Angeles International Airport, containing 23 office and industrial buildings belonging to the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit corporation that provides technical support for military satellite programs. The company has an annual budget of $350 million, and its primary customer, the Space and Missile Center of the US Air Force, is located across the street at Los Angeles Air Force Base. The Aerospace Corporation has other locations in Washington and Virginia, and employs around 3,400 people.

AES Power Plant

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The AES power plant is the only major power plant in Orange County, which otherwise gets its power from outside the county. It is located in a coastal industrial area in Huntington Beach, adjacent to the Ascon/NESI Superfund site, a gas and oil tank farm, and near a cluster of off-shore oil rigs. The beach across from the plant is occasionally polluted by human waste, possibly due to the cooling water intake of the plant concentrating the waste that emerges from the outfall of the County's sewage treatment plant, which is located a few miles down the beach.

Agua Dulce Air Park

Tue, 9 Dec 2003 22:57:32 GMT

Once a popular recreational pilot fly-in airport, Agua Dulce Air Park, north of Los Angeles, is hardly used at all as an airport anymore, but has been used as an airport location for several film productions. The small terminal building has been renamed by art departments a number of times, including the fictional "Bonneville Pass Airport" for the film Space Cowboys.

Air Force Plant 42

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

A major Air Force aircraft development and construction facility, with over eight million square feet of covered space. Contractors with substantial structures at the site include Northrop-Grumman, Rockwell/McDonnell Douglas/Boeing, NASA, and Lockheed-Martin's Skunk Works. Aircraft developed here include the B1-B bomber (Rockwell), B-2 stealth bomber (Northrop), SR-71 surveillance aircraft (Lockheed) and, currently, several UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) models. EG&G operates an terminal inside the base, providing air transport to other aerospace R&D centers such as Groom Lake (Area 51).

Air Force Propulsion Lab, Leuhman Ridge

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

One of the largest rocket test sites in the country. The Air Force Research Lab's Propulsion Directorate has its primary field lab at the remote northeast corner of Edwards AFB, on and around Leuhman Ridge, with additional test facilities on Haystack Butte, covering a total of 65 square miles of the base. The Air Force Research Lab (used to be called Phillips Lab) is one of the primary Air Force labs, concerned with directed energy weapons, space-related defense, and propulsion systems. The Lab has an annual budget of more than $600 million and is headquartered at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with other branches of the lab at Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts. The Edwards facilities serve the Space Experiments Directorate and the Propulsion Directorate. There is a space simulation facility as part of the Astronautics Lab, and several rocket engine test stands, some of which are visible from the highway, prominently sticking out of the top of Leuhman Ridge.

Alameda Naval Air Station Site

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Navy began building the 1,734 acre base on Alameda Island in the late 1930s, and for over 50 years it was a repair and maintenance facility for Navy aircraft, including carrier-based planes and helicopters. It was closed by BRAC in 1997, and is now in the lengthy transition stage from a military base to a civilian extension of the City of Alameda. The base once employed as many as 15,000 people, but now has a couple thousand working on it at most. Large maintenance hangars are used as soundstages, tradeshow exhibit fabrication, motor coach conversion, and other light industries. The former seaplane lagoon is a man-made harbor, flanked by expanses of asphalt, a port area with reserve military cargo vessels stationed there, engine test buildings, and a former corrosion control facility. The west end of the island, including the main runways, is again restricted to the public, this time as a wildlife refuge. The refuge covers over 500 acres of the base, including the runways, munition bunkers and the main landfill, where thousands of tons of toxic material was dumped for decades.

Albany Dump

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The undeveloped Albany Dump peninsula (also called Fleming Point and "the Bulb") is composed of fragments of the urban landscape dumped into the Bay up until 1984. Chunks of concrete, twisted metal, piles of shingles, and other debris are visible like a sort of geologic stratigraphy on the steep escarpments on the edges of the Bulb. Pathways wander through the scrub, leading to sculptures, piles of refuse, encampments, open air galleries, and other surprises, and the dump has been home to as many as sixty people. Recent evictions by the city, in anticipation of the area becoming a park, have met with limited success. At the base of the peninsula is Golden Gate Fields, the Bay Area's largest horse racing track, recently bought from the Catellus Corporation by an English gaming company. The track is built on the site of a former explosives plant which blew up for the last time in 1892, shattering windows in San Francisco.

Alcatraz Island

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Alcatraz Island, the notorious prison that once housed 260 federal offenders, is now visited by over one million people a year. Tourists are permitted to see the main prison areas, however, much of the rambling old facility is off-limits.

All American Canal

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

This 85-mile long canal brings water from the Colorado River to the citizens and agricultural industry of the Imperial Valley. The canal was completed in 1940, to replace a previous canal which served the same function, but traveled partly through Mexico (hence the name of the All American). The canal, one of the largest in the United States, travels through one of the hottest and driest places in the country, and is the sole source of water for the nation's fourth most productive, as well as most arid, agricultural region.

All American Pipeline

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The All American Pipeline is a thousand-mile long, 30" diameter pipe built to carry crude oil from producing areas around Bakersfield to refineries in McCamey, Texas, near Odessa. The crude is heated at several heating stations, located every 100 miles or so along the pipeline, to maintain the crude at a temperature between 140 to 160 degrees, decreasing its viscosity so that it flows with less friction through the pipe. The All American Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of Goodyear, was acquired by the El Paso Natural Gas Company in 2000, and the pipeline may be converted to carry natural gas.

Alviso

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Located at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay, Alviso is an old port town with a dried up marina. Over a hundred years ago, Alviso was San Jose's shipping port, and after railways made the port less vital, it became a major cannery town. The Bayside Cannery, still standing, is said to have been the third largest cannery in America in 1920. It was operated by Thomas Foon Chew, who became known as the Asparagus King, due to innovations made at this cannery. Foon died in 1931, and the cannery closed soon afterwards. Due to the heavy draw on the groundwater of San Jose, Alviso has sunk an estimated 15 feet, and is now protected by levees. Most of Alviso is now below sea level, and has been flooded several times. Some of the older buildings have been moved to higher ground. The Gold Street Pump Station takes water that is collected through the storm drains of the Alviso area and pumps it over the levee into the bay. Alviso's marina silted up due to flood control measures, such as deepening an adjacent slough, and the prohibitive expense of dredging the marina. Docks and even some boats are stranded in the drying marsh. Though Silicon Valley's office park developments are encroaching, the town retains some of its original character, and some buildings over 150 years old are still standing.

Amargosa Opera House

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Located in a remote stretch of desert, near the Nevada/California state line, the Amargosa Opera House, once an abandoned community center, offers weekly performances of classical ballet, theater, and pantomine. All the performances are written and executed by Marta Becket, a classically trained ballerina from New York, who came to this place to have a flat tire repaired in 1968, and essentially never left. Over the years she has performed in the space, with or without an audience, and has decorated the opera house with painted murals, portraying an audience of 16th century Spanish royalty, clerics, gypsies and revelers.

Ambassador Hotel Site

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Ambassador Hotel, torn down in 2007, was a legendary urban resort built on Wilshire Boulevard in 1921, with over 600 rooms and 13 acres of floor space. For a few decades it was a popular place for celebrities, from Hollywood stars to politicians, to wine, dine, and mingle. The Academy Awards ceremonies were held in the Coconut Grove theater in the hotel six times in the 1930s and 1940s. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the hotel's kitchen in 1968. The hotel closed in 1989. In its final years, the empty hotel was used exclusively as a film and television shooting location, hosting as many as 100 productions a year. The site is being developed into a $270 million public school, which will use the only remaining structure, the Cocoanut Grove, as an auditorium.

Ames Research Center (NASA)

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

NASA's Ames site is an aerospace research and development installation, located at the southwest end of the San Francisco Bay in Silicon Valley, amid a cluster of similar enterprises, including Onizuka Air Base and Lockheed's Missile and Space division. Facilities at Ames include several wind tunnels, including the largest one in the world. Many of the facilities from the closed down Moffett Naval Air Station are now managed by Ames, including the Moffett Federal Airfield, and the large airship hangars, built during WWII.

Angel Island

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Like a bigger Alcatraz, Angel Island is an "away" place for the city, now as a park, but formerly as a site for activities undesirable in the midst of the city. Since the first use of the island as an artillery station in the 1860s, it has hosted many generations of gun batteries, up until 1962. Meanwhile it served as the Bay Area's primary quarantine and "disinfection" station, as the immigrant processing and detention center known as "the Ellis Island of the West," and as a prisoner of war camp during World Wars. Now it is operated as a State Park, though the ruins of the former uses of the island dominate the atmosphere. The most built up portion of the island is the former East Garrison of Fort McDowell, where numerous empty buildings lurk, including the "1,000 man barracks," one of the earliest examples of tilt-up architectural construction. The Immigration Station on the north end of the island was a processing and detention center for new immigrants from 1910 to 1940, and a POW and internment camp during WWII. Many of the original structures remain, in a state of arrested decay, and a museum and memorial are open to the public. Point Blunt, the southeastern tip of Angel Island, is still closed to the public. A coast guard station, with a single residence, occupies the lower levels, while a Nike missile battery, abandoned in 1962, is above it.

Antelope Valley Indian Museum

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

A museum about the Antelope Valley, with an emphasis on regional Native American history.

Arrowhead Water Source

Tue, 2 Dec 2003 21:31:59 GMT

Arrowhead Water, one of the largest bottled water brands in the western United States, has its original source here, just outside the gates of the Arrowhead resort, a large old vacant resort at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains. The source is a pipe that is used to fill tanker trucks, which come nearly continuously to the site, opening the automatic gates each time.

Auburn Dam Site

Sun, 7 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Remnants from early and aborted construction attempts can be seen at the site of the proposed $1 billion Auburn Dam on the American River. This dam has been proposed in several forms since the 1950s, each time the proposed project failed to be executed. Construction even started on the dam in 1967, and continued until an earthquake stopped the project several years later. The function of the dam would be to help prevent flooding in the Sacramento area, and would make more land suitable for development.

Aviation Parts Warehouse Inc. Scrapyard

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

An aviation parts yard, with an unusual collection of aircraft hulks and fuselages, used primarily by the movie industry. Pieces from this yard have been trucked all over the country and used in over 300 feature films, including "Speed" and "Hero." This 15-acre site is Aviation Parts Warehouse Inc.'s largest yard, though the company owns other properties.

Avon Refinery

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Golden Eagle Refinery in Martinez, also known as the Avon Refinery, is one of five refineries located around the San Francisco Bay and Delta region. Valued around $1 billion, the refinery has a processing capacity of 166,000 barrels of crude per day, making mostly automotive fuels. It was built in 1913, to process heavy crude from the southern San Joaquin Valley, to which it is connected by pipeline. It is now owned by Tesoro, of San Antonio, TX, and has previously been owned by Tosco and Ultramar Diamond Shamrock.

Bagdad Cafe

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:30:04 GMT

"Just a little cafe between Las Vegas and nowhere," the Sidewinder Cafe was renamed the Bagdad Cafe after it served as the principal shooting location for the film "Bagdad Cafe." It is not on the way to Las Vegas, however.

Bank of America Old Main Branch

Tue, 9 Dec 2003 22:45:36 GMT

The Bank of America building, downtown at 7th and Spring, was the Los Angeles headquarters for the bank from 1930 to 1972. The upstairs offices are now used by the Los Angeles Department of Engineering, while the grand bank lobby, with vaulted ceilings, has been vacant since 1988, and has been used in numerous films, including Traffic, Blow, and Seven. The bank vault on the main floor, as well as the walls behind the counters, are set dressings left from filming. With the change in banking from the full-service branch to ATMs and electronic banking, many bank buildings in America have closed, and several of them in LA are used only as film locations.

Barstow Marine Corps Logistics Base Nebo

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Barstow Marine Corps Logistics Base serves as a storage, distribution and maintenance depot for Marine Corps facilities in the Pacific area and western portions of the United States. Equipment, weapons and supplies are warehoused, repaired, remanufactured and redistributed at this active base, which is the primary Marine Corps facility with this function west of the Mississippi. The depot is composed of three locations east of Barstow: The 2,000-acre Yermo Annex; the Main Base at the Nebo Facility, two miles west of the Yermo Annex; and in between the two, south of Interstate 40, the Marine Corps Rifle Range. All together, the Marine Corps Logistics Base covers over 4,000 acres, and employs 2,500 people. Direct rail links to Los Angeles and San Diego, and the intersection of major interstate highways continue to make this a strategic location. There are several nearby Marine Corps facilities served by the Barstow Logistics Base: the 900 square mile Twenty Nine Palms Combat Center is 25 miles to the southeast; Camp Pendleton, with its population of 50,000 is 100 miles south; El Toro Air Station is less than 100 miles away; and less than 150 miles away is the San Diego Recruit Depot where 23,000 Marines are trained every year.

Barstow Marine Corps Logistics Base Yermo Annex

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Barstow Marine Corps Logistics Base serves as a storage, distribution and maintenance depot for Marine Corps facilities in the Pacific area and western portions of the United States. Equipment, weapons and supplies are warehoused, repaired, remanufactured and redistributed at this active base, which is the primary Marine Corps facility with this function west of the Mississippi. The depot is composed of three locations east of Barstow: The 2,000 acre Yermo Annex; the Main Base at the Nebo Facility, two miles west of the Yermo Annex; and in between the two, south of Interstate 40, the Marine Corps Rifle Range. All together, the Marine Corps Logistics Base covers over 4,000 acres, and employs 2,500 people. Direct rail links to Los Angeles and San Diego, and the intersection of major interstate highways continue to make this a strategic location. There are several nearby Marine Corps facilities served by the Barstow Logistics Base: the 900 square mile Twenty Nine Palms Combat Center is 25 miles to the southeast; Camp Pendleton, with its population of 50,000 is 100 miles south; El Toro Air Station is less than 100 miles away; and less than 150 miles away is the San Diego Recruit Depot where 23,000 Marines are trained every year.

Barstow Railroad Yards

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Barstow was founded as a railway town, and continues to be a major logistical center for material entering and leaving Los Angeles. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail company maintains one of its largest railway yards here, with 48 classification tracks, and the company's transcontinental route from Chicago forks at Barstow, with one track heading through the Cajon Pass to Los Angeles, and the other heading north to the San Francisco area. The old railway station in Barstow, located nearby, was a "Harvey House" restaurant, and it now houses the bus depot and a Route 66 museum.

Bay Model

Fri, 22 Mar 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for most of the dredging and filling projects around the Bay, maintains the Bay Model in one of the original Marinship warehouses. The model is a two-acre functional scale model of the entire Bay and Delta region, built originally to test bay fill projects, such as the Reber Plan, and which is now used primarily as an educational display. It is the only remaining, intact, and functioning hydraulic model of this size in America, and it shows the whole of the Bay and Delta region, surrounded by displays and kiosks.

Beale Air Force Base

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Beale AFB is a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft base. Located in the Sacramento Valley, it is home to the only stateside reconnaissance wing, which recently flew the SR-71 Blackbird and still flies the nation's fleet of U2 spy planes. Beale is also one of four U.S. locations for the Phased Array Warning System, a unique radar system housed in a large pyramidal building. Also called PAVE-PAWS, the system tracks airborne and space-borne objects over the Pacific Ocean (there is a similar PAVE-PAWS on Cape Cod that looks out over the Atlantic). The base covers 23,000 acres and employs around 4,000 people.

Benicia Arsenal

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Benicia was the first army arsenal established on the West Coast, operating from 1849 to 1964, when its function was transferred to the larger Tooele Depot in Utah. It provided a defense for the gold mines of the Sierras, and supplied the army with weapons for wars against the Native Americans. During the Korean War it was a repair center for cannons, tanks, and trucks, and served as a Nike missile maintenance depot for some of the Bay Area's Nike missile sites until the 1960s. When the base closed, the port areas were transferred to a new company, Benicia Industries, which continues to manage the private port. The largest tenant is the automobile logistics company Amports, which can store as many as 42,000 cars at Benicia at any given time. The clocktower building, which still stands at the top of the hill overlooking the Port, was the main storehouse for munitions through the 1880s. Unexploded bombs and other explosives are scattered underground at a number of sites around the arsenal grounds, including many public and privately owned areas. The army corps is in the midst of a major survey and disposal program all over the site.