El Porto, Manhattan Beach, California
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El Porto is a beach community that is part of Manhattan Beach, a city in the South Bay area of Greater Los Angeles in Southern California.
The boundary of El Porto is 45th Street on the north side, which is the border with El Segundo, and its Chevron oil refinery, to 38th Street, which was the old border with Manhattan; the east-west boundary is Crest Drive, next to the fence of El Segundo's oil refinery, to El Porto State Beach and the Pacific Ocean.
The commercial section of El Porto is along Highland Avenue, which is its only main thoroughfare. North of 45th Street, Highland becomes Vista Del Mar Boulevard, which runs along the coast to Playa del Rey.
[edit] History
El Porto was subdivided in 1911 on land owned by developer George H. Peck. There were 83 business lots, 225 residential lots, on good soil partly covered with large trees, and ocean view sand lots. Included were concrete sidewalks and curbs, oiled streets and artesian water that was piped in the streets.
The 30-by-90 foot lots, laid out by Peck, were each between a street and an alley. At first, no names were given to the streets. Numbers were later assigned to the east-west streets and names to the alleys. The alley between 39th and 40th Streets, for instance, is named El Porto Street.
Although it is thought to mean "The Port" in Spanish, the name is actually a misspelling and translates "The I Carry." The Spanish word for port should have actually been spelled p-u-e-r-t-o.
El Porto is probably the only community in the state that was almost totally developed with two residential units filling each of its tiny lots, with no room for yards and/or gardens. For over six decades, this small seaside town was a county island that was part of the El Segundo Unified School District.
In November 1980, the unincorporated town of El Porto, consisting of approximately 34 acres and a population of about 1,185 people, was annexed from the County of Los Angeles by Manhattan Beach.
