Signal Hill, 1940s.
Source: Andreas Feininger/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty
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Before Hollywood was the film capital of the world, with its glitter dusting of movie stars, red carpets, and Oscar statuettes; before L.A. was an aerospace giant; before the Southland emerged as the globe’s largest manufacturing and distribution center, Los Angeles was an oil town. Pumpjacks, in fact, still seesaw around the clock in Inglewood backyards and on the slopes of Signal Hill, and the most notable feature of Long Beach’s famously long beach these days is a string of oil derricks sitting a half-mile offshore that are badly disguised as tropical islands.