When was the Long Beach, California breakwater built? Why was it built?
The Long Beach California Breakwater is the largest man made breakwater in the world. Made of three gigantic walls of rock, it was completed in 1949 and extends about 2 1/2 miles in front of Long Beach’s residential beaches. It’s original objective was to thwart submarines and torpedoes during World War II. The beach’s popularity has heavily declined since 1949, when the Army Corps of Engineers completed the final stretch of an 8.14-mile offshore rock barrier. The breakwater system, composed of Santa Catalina Island rock, was built to shelter the port and provide a secure harbor for the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet in the ’40s. The last boulder was put on the Long Beach breakwater in 1949, and served the Navy well by providing a safe harbor with mitigated wave activity and easy access to a bustling port. Connolly-Pacific Co. won an Army Corps of Engineers contract to construct the last remaining segment of the breakwater structures for the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. For this job
