The mostly forgotten, rich history of the many bridges of Newport Beach, beginning in 1889.

Legendary architect and Corona del Mar resident Ron Yeo counts down the seven best examples of architecture in Newport Beach.

At the end of the Balboa Peninsula, the Wedge is internationally recognized as the world's best (and most dangerous) bodysurfing spot. In this episode, learn:

• How the Wedge was created by a manmade accident in 1936.
• Why no one dared to ride the Wedge for decades.
• Why bodysurfing at the Wedge faced extinction twice.
• How a rag-tag group of bodysurfers formed the Wedge Crew and has ruled the break for more than 50 years (all while wearing just Speedos).
• How bodysurfing the uniquely dangerous wave has led to leading innovations in the sport.
• The art of bodysurfing is being preserved through new generations of the Wedge Crew.

Guest: Tim Burnham, Wedge Crew member and producer and director of the award-winning surf documentary, "The Dirty Old Wedge."

In this pop quiz on Newport  Beach's origins, you’ll be tested on:

• Why Newport Landing (Newport’s Plymouth Rock and first port, which is on the site of what’s now the Lower Castaways) became a ghost town virtually overnight after a successful 18-year run.
  
  
• What ingenious method did Newport’s pioneers use to widen and deepen the entrance to Newport Bay in 1876. (It's mindboggling!)
  
  
• How the McFadden brothers, Newport’s founding fathers, selected the site for their oceanside wharf (eventually replaced by the Newport Pier) to accommodate the largest commercial ships of the era.
  
  
• What was the fatal design flaw in the construction of the first wharf that caused its destruction after just four years after completion.
  
  
• How many structures, including warehouses, shanties and a two-story home, were moved from Newport Landing inside the bay to McFadden Wharf on the ocean. (You'll never guess!)

This multiple-choice test covers the earliest days of Newport Beach history.  The six questions are: 

1. Despite explorers and merchants sailing off the coast of California beginning in the mid-1500s, why was there no mention of Newport Bay in the historical record for 300 years? (The answer will surprise you.)
   
   
2. Why in 1870 did Capt. Samuel S. Dunnells decide to turn into Newport Bay and search for a "new port" despite ample warnings that the inlet was too dangerous. (The answer is not what you would expect.)
   
   
3. A tiny settlement sprung up at Newport Landing soon after its discovery. Who were the first settlers? (This is a shocker as well.)
   
   
4. What made Newport Landing unlike any port along the California coast? (It has to do with the shallow depths of and high surf at the bay's entrance.)
   
   
5. How as the cargo loaded onto ships at Newport Landing? (It was an ingenious method in a time before cranes were common.) 

Each answer comes with plenty of context. Enjoy!

Episode 14, "The Coastal Freeway: A Concrete Monster that Almost Destroyed Newport," has generated some amazing responses on social media. 

Some expressed disbelief  at how close Newport was to having a freeway (12 lanes at its widest) run through the center of town. Others simply wanted to thank the Freeway Fighters and others who thwarted this plan more than a half-century ago. And finally, we heard from some Freeway Fighters and their family members who provided first-hand recollections of the greatest "what if" moment in Newport Beach history. 

We've put together the best of these comments for a postscript episode on the Coastal Freeway. It seemed like the perfect way to wrap up this story.

In 1970, the Newport Beach City Council and California Department of Highways signed an agreement to build a coastal freeway—12 lanes wide in places—that would run through the heart of Newport and include a five-level interchange at MacArthur Boulevard and East Coast Highway. The route had been decided upon, funding was in place, and the Coastal Freeway appeared to be a fait accompli.  But then, the Freeway Fighters of the Harbor Area came to the rescue.

In 1954, Dora Hill, housewife and grandmother, reluctantly entered the Newport Beach City Council race just 10 minutes before the filing deadline and unexpectedly won in a landslide. Garnering the most votes in city history, the victory surprised even her husband, who only agreed to her run for office because he was convinced she would lose.

At her first council meeting, she was appointed the city's first female mayor. For the next four years, Mayor Hill would led a reformation of Newport Beach from a town run by a powerful good, old boys' network that traded heavily in cronyism to a transparent and professional city government that continues to this day.

Mayor Hill's second greatest achievement was figuring how to stop 35,000 kids from their annual spring-break invasion (called Bal Week) of Newport Beach, a town at the time of just 17,000 residents.

She did all this while battling the relentless chauvinism that came with being the city's first woman mayor.

Special feature: This episode incorporates a rare recording of Mayor Hill that allows her to tell much of her story in her own words. 

In our fourth, multi-choice pop quiz on Newport Beach history, find out:

• Why you would find horses on the beach at between the the late 19th Century and the 1930s.
• What was the castle on Collins Island converted to in the 1940s.
• Who were the previous tenants of the Mariners Mile building (a classic in Southern California modern architecture) now occupied by the upscale A'marees boutique.
• What were three things that Newport Beach could "crow" about, according to a Los Angeles Times article in 1883.
• Why a Newport Beach man generated international headlines in 1940.

Newport Beach history is littered with fun, weird, amazing and/or mindboggling stories that are too thin to make into an entire episode, but too good to pass up. In "Newport Nuggets: Three Short Stories Lost to History," we explores a trio of tales from the early part of the 20th Century:

1.  Newport Beach's first doctor and the Spanish Flu pandemic.
   
   
2. The summer camp on Little Balboa Island for orphans and children whose parents couldn't take care or them. The popular retreat lasted 30 years (1914-1944).
   
   
3. The would-be (and massive) religious colony, Melrose Mesa, planned for the West Newport bluffs near present-day Hoag Hospital.  And why it didn't have a prayer at succeeding.