The only city in the United States surrounded 360 degrees by one other city, it overlooks Long Beach harbor with the nation's busiest port, Long Beach Airport and several freeway systems passing through Long Beach. Unlike sections of Long Beach such as Belmont Shore with personal zip codes, Signal Hill is a separate city with no number of its own. Primarily residential, its property is undervalued but certain to rise in price once some of its hill view houses and townhome tracts are completed. Previously known as an industrial city with oil drills and derricks rising to the sky, evidence of knowledge of oil and tar appear in its earliest history. Crude that welled up naturally was used for a variety of purposes. .
Steam rises from monument.
It wasn't until 1922 that the hill's vast resources were tapped with a gusher that took four days to cap, to the cheers of the crowd that gathered to watch. Two years later the City of Signal Hill was established. Roads were paved, refineries sprang up, fires raged and were extinguished and some people became wealthy almost overnight. Spanish Padres continued the tradition of building fires on the hill and today, the fire still burns symbolically at the Hilltop Park monument. Also on view at Hilltop Park are several shadow art frames like the one pictured above.