I had a reader question today, this one from Bruce Bennett (asking for his wife):
"My wife walks Rosie the Riveter Park often and she wonders about this factoid she sees there.
"She did an internet search and called the Long Beach Historical Society and could find no info on this area. Such as where was San Antonio Heights? What are the boundaries and what is the area called now? Was it a development strictly for the defense workers? Any info you can provide or where to find more about it would be greatly appreciated."
In 1941 ground was broken for a new housing development called San Antonio Heights, named for the road that formed its southern border in Bixby Knolls.
The tract of more than 600 two-bedroom, one-bath homes was designed and built specifically for defense workers and their families, especially those working in the military airplane plants of nearby Douglas Aircraft at Daugherty Field—now Long Beach Airport—whose workforce of some 50,000 men and women working around the clock, would, over the next three years, turn out thousands of military aircraft, including about planes such as the B-17 Flying Fortress
bomber, and the smaller A-20 Havoc and A-26 Invader attack bombers as well as about 4,000 C-47 transport planes.
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