North Under The Bridge
Jack Finn Collection
A northbound Southern Division Pacific Electric interurban set rolls under the semaphore signal bridge; the trailing car’s “Long Beach” destination board is visible.
Jack Finn Collection
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Shadows indicate we’ve got a southward view of a two-car train rolling on the s/b express track. I believe this is Amoco. By enlarging the image we can see the Air Line traversing the four-tracks in the distance, as well as what seems to be a connector from the s/b local track to the w/b Air Line. The thing that troubles me is that the old wooden Amoco tower should be visible, but isn’t. Maybe it’s hidden by the train. Any suggestions? Take a look in Donald Duke’s PE Southern District book pages 112 and 114 for shots of old Amoco tower.
Slauson and Amoco towers both had similar or identical two-track signal bridges in the early days. I agree with Paul’s comment above that this is Amoco and that the view is looking south based on the sun angle.
The 1920 Sanborn map (Vol. 15, sheet 1513) available on the Library of Congress website seems to support this. The map shows a store at 2501 Long Beach Ave. (corner of 25th), and I was able to find some fragmentary references online to various people named Eddy living or doing business at this address. The buildings on the opposite side of the tracks also look like a match for the Amoco plant buildings shown on the Sanborn map (iron-clad frame building north of a brick building). The long brick building oriented perpendicular to the tracks (in the distance, behind the Amoco buildings) looks like it could be the Miller Engine & Foundry Company building shown on sheet 1517.
I couldn’t find a full set of Sanborn maps for Slauson Tower, but sheets 1540 and 1541 of the above volume show that the area north of Slauson Ave. was much more sparsely developed in 1920. From this I doubt it’s looking north at Slauson. I doubt it’s looking south at Slauson because we would see the tower on the right. Other details such as the nearer road crossing also support Amoco much more than Slauson based on 1927-1928 aerial photos. (I can’t find the far road crossing with the car driving across, but maybe this was an earlier crossing that was eliminated along with the street reconstruction that resulted in demolition of the original Amoco Tower.)
So, in summary, pretty sure this is looking south at Amoco as Paul mentioned above. From what I can tell, the original Amoco Tower was on the east side of the tracks, so it is hidden by the train as Paul suspected.