Balboa Peninsula, Newport Beach

It is named after Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to sight the Pacific from the Americas.

In 1888, the McFadden family, which had arrived in California c. 1849, decided their shipping business would be more successful if they moved it from the inner shores of the bay to the oceanfront, where it was connected by rail to Santa Ana.

Huntington had acquired the Pacific Electric railway system and used it to promote new communities outside of Los Angeles.

Collins began dredging a channel on the north side of the bay and deposited the sand and silt on tidelands that would become Balboa Island.

Linda Isle and Harbor Island connect via bridge from Bayside Drive off SR 1.