With the combined equivalent of 14 million standard shipping containers moving through San Pedro Bay's harbor each year, it's likely that many of the TVs, toys, and other imported goods sold at deep discount this Black Friday will have passed through the region's twin seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Now, as frenzied shoppers fight off the effects of tryptophan in their hunt for sales, explore the story of Southern California's unlikely harbor -- and how it came to be divided between two cities -- through selected images from the region's photographic archives.
San Francisco and San Diego both benefit from fine natural harbors, but topography forced Los Angeles to create its own; before improvements, the San Pedro Bay offered only partial shelter from winds and seas, and features like a sandbar in the middle of the bay and mudflats along the shore made the bay less than an ideal site for shipping.