The aptly named Rainbow Pier in Long Beach, California was actually a breakwater. Opening in 1931, the pier extended a quarter of a mile into the Pacific and was so wide with that vehicles could drive along it. For more than thirty years it gave the Sunday drivers of Long Beach a lovely day’s outing. Contained within it was the 40-acre Rainbow Lagoon that protected swimmers and sailors from the choppy ocean. By the mid-60s though it wasn’t in great shape and huge land reclamation project that gave Long Beach a convention center and Aquarium of the Pacific spelled its doom.

Driving on the Rainbow Pier, Long Beach, California, 1940

That large building in the center was the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. Demolished in the mid-1970s and replaced with the Terrace Theater.