$4M Investment Fuels Next

Phase of Willow Springs Park

Once dominated by oil wells, the site is evolving into a rare urban wetland and community space shaped by years of advocacy and ongoing restoration efforts

 

By Chelsea Sektnan​

 

Willow Springs Park in Long Beach doesn’t look like a typical city park, and that’s exactly the point.

 

Trails wind through the site past wetlands, oil derricks, and native plants, at times running alongside active industrial uses. On one side, the park borders Sunnyside Cemetery and Long Beach Municipal Cemetery. On the other edge of the property, it borders the aerospace company Vast Space and other industrial uses. Much of the site remains undeveloped or still reflects its industrial past.

 

“We’re trying to preserve the park in a natural state… as opposed to a regular park with baseball fields,” said Mauna Eichner, co-chair of Friends of Willow Springs Park (FOWSP). “We don’t need another manicured park. We need something that reflects what this land actually is.”

 

That vision is now shaping a new phase of investment in the site.

 

Los Angeles County recently awarded $4 million in Measure A funds to support the Willow Springs Park Trailhead Project, which could include reimagining a historic train depot that burned down in 2016, as well as expanded parking

and basic amenities.

 

“I’d like to see that train station reconstructed,” Lee Fukui, co-chair of FOWSP, said. “We have the plans for it… I’d like to see something from the past recreated there for visitors to see it, and make it a destination.”

 

The depot, a historic structure relocated to the site years ago, was destroyed in a 2016 fire, leaving a visible gap at what is one of the park’s entrances. 

 

LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose office helped oversee the Measure A funding allocation, framed the investment as part of a broader effort to expand access to open space in underserved communities.

 

“We live in one of the most beautiful natural environments on Earth, but for too many families-especially in our urban communities- getting out into nature is still frustratingly out of reach,” said Hahn in a statement. “That’s where our local parks come in. They are that missing link.”

 

For Hahn, the investment is about access. For people who have spent years working on the site, it’s something else, too-momentum.

 

“This is really the last natural open space where it is native vegetation,” said Long Beach District 5 Councilwoman Megan Kerr. “It really is about restoration to natural space.”

 

How much it would cost to restore the entire park site hasn’t been determined.

 

Kerr said the site’s history makes that work especially significant.

 

To understand what Willow Springs is now, you have to understand what it was, and what it almost became. Long before the trails, the wetlands, or the beehives, this land was something else entirely.

 

In the early 20th century, Long Beach leaders proposed transforming the area into a large public park with recreational amenities. Those plans never materialized, as the discovery of oil soon reshaped the landscape.

 

“It was supposed to be a grand park,”

Eichner said.

“That idea has been around for a long time.”

 

But the timing was off. In 1921, oil was discovered on Signal Hill. Within a matter of months, the landscape shifted. Open land gave way to drilling rigs. By 1923, the area had become one of the most productive oil fields in the world.

 

The park plans were quietly dropped. For decades, the land remained industrial-dense with oil derricks, shaped by extraction, and largely inaccessible

to the public.

 

“I used to drill oil here when I was 19,” said Mike Pack, a member of  FOWSP and an environmental advocate. “Back then, this whole area was completely different.”

 

During an April Friends of Willow Springs Park meeting hike, birds and insects could be heard throughout the site, along with the steady sound of airplanes overhead, as Pack paused and looked out across the trails and

low-lying vegetation.

 

“It’s come a long way,” he said. “What we’re doing here is creating community.”

 

The shift away from industry didn’t happen all at once.

 

Planning for a park resumed in the mid-2000s, with early restoration efforts taking shape. The first section opened in 2012. A larger wetlands restoration project followed in 2017, reintroducing native plants and rebuilding parts of the ecosystem that had long been buried or disrupted.

 

“That’s what this park is all about,” said Fukui. “It was founded on a natural spring.”

 

That spring, once part of a broader system that helped define early Long Beach, has been reimagined here through constructed water features and bioswales designed to capture and filter runoff.

 

Oil wells remain scattered across and around the property, with more than a dozen still visible and 11 still in production; others are idle and operated by companies such as Signal Hill Petroleum, a reminder of the site’s industrial past.

 

“There’s so much urban industrial landscape, but you can see the potential,” said Donald Specker, a member of FOWSP who joined a recent walk through the park.

 

That tension between what was and what could be is everywhere. Walk farther into Willow Springs, and the usual markers of a city park fall away.

 

No soccer fields or play structures compete for space. Instead, the landscape opens up, crisscrossed by trails that weave through habitat and restoration areas. A large mulch pile maintained by the Long Beach Community Compost Organization sits within view of a roughly four-acre concrete recycling site operated by Martin Marietta Materials, a holdover from when the land was zoned for industry. The facility, which has been there since at least the 1980s, still crushes old concrete into road base for reuse. It remains for now, generating revenue for the city, even as long-term plans call for its eventual phase-out. Nearby, a constructed spring has been folded into the terrain, part of the park’s gradual ecological restoration.

 

Along one stretch of trail, a mural and signage tell the story of the Gabrielino/Tongva people, the original inhabitants of the region.

 

“People think this land was empty before,”

Fukui said. “It wasn’t.”

 

For some, Willow Springs has taken on another role: a place to teach.

 

“It’s very much like a classroom outdoors,” said Jennifer Duke, communications director for the Long Beach Beekeepers.

 

That classroom extends to the Willow Springs Bee Sanctuary, located within the park, where rescued honey bee colonies are relocated and cared for.

 

“I have about 150 hives… in the backyards of over 60 homes,” said beekeeper Gabriel Salinas. “But this is the only place I know of where rescued bees can be brought and where people can come learn.”

 

Salinas and the club use the site as part of a broader network of bee rescue

and education.

 

“The city said, ‘We have this little piece of property… and you can keep bees,’” he said. “So we did.”

 

Salinas died suddenly from complications of diabetes while speaking about the hives. Read more about him below.

 

The sanctuary also serves as a training ground for new beekeepers.

 

“We do about 53 classes a year,” said Jacob Dickinson, president of the Long Beach Beekeepers. “People come out here, and they start to understand

what’s happening.”

 

For volunteers, the mission is both practical and educational.

 

“It’s like a dog rescue,” said Jamie Guoz, former president of the Long Beach Beekeepers. But for bees. “They just need a place to go.”

 

In another part of the park, a similar effort is underway.

 

Farm Lot 59, located on the southwest edge of the park, grows organic produce and offers classes on urban gardening and sustainability. The nonprofit was founded in 2010 by Sasha Kanno and is part of a broader effort to reconnect Long Beach residents with food production. The site also distributes food and flowers to community members and hosts workshops focused on soil health, composting, and native planting.

 

Even with new funding, Willow Springs is not a finished project.

The site faces ongoing challenges, including access and infrastructure limitations, parking constraints, and concerns about overnight RV use in the surrounding areas, and on some sections of the property.

 

Of the roughly 48 acres owned by the city, only about 15 are currently accessible. The rest remains in various stages of planning or restoration. The trailhead project is expected to cost about $5 million, including $4 million in the Measure A funds.

 

“Public Works is taking the lead on redesigning the plans to better fit how that area is used now,” said Larry Rich, sustainability manager and the Office of Climate Action & Sustainability’s liaison to FOWSP. “There’s a need for a larger capacity parking lot, and a strong interest in incorporating a bathroom into it.”

 

Near the east side of the park, the landscape shifts again. A large mound of mulch sits among native plantings, including California sun cups, a coastal wildflower recently added by volunteers as part of ongoing restoration efforts, and narrow-leaf native milkweed, planted during a recent monarch butterfly education day to support monarch populations. 

 

A short distance away, Vast Space, an aerospace company developing commercial space station technology, operates facilities near the northeast side

of the property. 

 

“We’re trying to preserve the park in a natural state… while also providing facilities like restrooms and a visitor center,” said Rashid Ocheltree, a volunteer for FOWSP who helps maintain hiking trails throughout the site. “[We’re] keeping the park more natural as opposed to a regular park with baseball fields or soccer fields.”

 

Less than half of the 40-acre site has been developed so far, he said.

 

Eichner said the long-term goal is to continue restoring the land while keeping its natural character.

 

“We’re trying to preserve the park in a natural state,” said Eichner. “That’s the goal.”