Before World War II The original Tongva name for the island is unknown, though Spanish colonizers first named it Isla Raza de Buena Gente and later Rattlesnake Island. It was renamed Terminal Island in 1891. held deed to roughly 18 acres of land on Rattlesnake Island. Phineas Banning was instrumental in bringing innovative changes to San Pedro Bay and made the first steps towards expansion. Once annexed with the city of Los Angeles the expansion was completed. In the late 1920s,
Deadman's Island in the main channel of the Port of Los Angeles was dynamited and dredged away, and the resulting rubble was used to add to Terminal Island's southern tip. In 1930, the
Ford Motor Company built a facility called
Long Beach Assembly, having moved earlier operations from Downtown Los Angeles. The factory remained until 1958 when manufacturing operations were moved inland to
Pico Rivera. In 1927, a civilian facility, Allen Field, was established on Terminal Island. The
Naval Reserve established a training center at the field and later took complete control, designating the field
Naval Air Base San Pedro (also called
Reeves Field). A large industrial facility now covers the site of the former Naval Air Station.
Japanese American fishing community Federal Writers' Project Starting in 1906, a Japanese American fishing community became established on Terminal Island in an area known as East San Pedro or Fish Island. Because of the island's relative geographical isolation, its inhabitants developed their own culture and dialect. The dialect, known as "kii-shu ben" (or "Terminal Island lingo"), was a mix of English and the dialect of
Kii Province, where many residents originated. Prior to World War II, the island was home to about 3,500 first- and second-generation Japanese Americans. Like many Japanese immigrants, the initial settlers who came to America were
Dekasegi, immigrants who intended to work a short time in the U.S then return to Japan. Many of these immigrants first arrived in
Santa Monica, California with the hopes of creating a community there but after their town was burned in 1916, they moved to Terminal Island. Growing fishing interests in San Pedro's
White Point and Terminal Island led many Japanese to become sought after due to their skill as fishermen and connections to the canning industry. The first major sign of the community's forming came in the form of the Southern California Japanese Fishermen's Association (SCJFA), a political and social body. On January 26, 1918, their efforts were rewarded with a completed assembly hall for the community. The community saw political activism, particularly combatting anti-Japanese racism. One such example was the actions of bilingual intellectual Kihei Nasu, who was hired by the SCJFA to write a report refuting recent attempts by California Senator
James D. Phelan that the Japanese were driving out American fishermen. On February 19, 1942, two months after the attack, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of all people deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to one of the ten relocation camps across the nation. Immediately after Executive Order 9066 was authorized, Japanese-Americans of Terminal Island were among the first groups to be forcibly removed from their homes. Japanese men were the first taken into custody. They were put on trains and could not see where they were being taken. The
Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the homes of Japanese-Americans and searched for radios, flashlights, cameras, and morse code telegraph machines. The Navy was responsible for razing the homes and structures of the Japanese Americans of Terminal Island. In 1971, twenty-three Japanese-American former residents of Terminal Island established a new group called the Terminal Islanders.
World War II and beyond During World War II, Terminal Island was an important center for defense industries, especially shipbuilding; the first
California Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard was established there in 1941. It was also, therefore, one of the first places where African Americans tried to effect their integration into defense-related work on the West Coast. The
San Pedro yard of
Bethlehem Steel was also located on the Island. 26 destroyers were built there following the mobilization of the warship industry by the
Two-Ocean Navy Act of July 1940. The yard was the third largest of the kind on the West Coast, behind the
Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation (
Todd Pacific) in
Puget Sound and Bethlehem's own San Francisco yards (
Union Iron Works). In 1943, Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company became
Todd Pacific Shipyards, Los Angeles Division. Also in the Port of Los Angeles (but not on the Island) was the Wilmington yard of
Consolidated Steel. In 1946,
Howard Hughes moved his monstrous
Spruce Goose airplane from his plant in
Culver City to Terminal Island in preparation for its test flight. In its first and only flight, it took off from the island on November 2, 1947. with destroyers at Terminal Island, the latter undergoing
Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization, circa 1962
Brotherhood Raceway Park, a mile
drag racing strip, opened in 1974 on former US Navy land. It operated, with many interruptions, until finally closing in 1995 to be replaced by a coal-handling facility. Preservation of the two remaining buildings on Tuna Street with ties to the former Japanese fishing village earned the island a spot on the top 11 sites on the
National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2012 Most Endangered Historic Places List. In mid-2013, the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a preservation plan. The trust continued to list the site in 2025. ==Current use==