The heated sulphured water at White Point likely emerges from a fracture in a geologically complex zone where a fan-shaped anticline and a southward-overturned syncline overlap.

[4] The White Point tide pools are home to California mussels, hermit crabs, starfish, sea urchins, and turban snails.

[14] In the last years of the 19th century, White Point was developed as an abalone fishery off Rancho de Los Palos Verdes; the fishermen were mostly immigrants from Japan.

[12] Racist California state laws prevented Japanese land ownership but the sulphur springs apparently earned the White Point resort a partial "sanatorium" exception.

"[3] A small pumping plant was constructed and water from the natural hydrothermal features was piped into sulphur-water soaking pools.

[17][3] Shuttles brought visitors from Point Fermin and Los Angeles, and an automobile road was carved out of the cliffs around 1923,[18] and improved in 1926.

")[18] Visitors came from Japanese communities as far away as San Francisco, Sacramento, and Fresno, because Japanese-Americans could enjoy this resort (whereas they were prohibited from entering others due to discriminatory practices), and the baths were referred to as onsen.

[3] This was a high point, as the following year the 1933 Long Beach earthquake disrupted the hydrology and plumbing that fed the resort pools.

[3] A conflicting account published in one of the American Guides claimed that the 18 holes of the Royal Palms course were open to public as of 1941, at a cost of 35¢ a day on weekdays, and 50¢ on Sunday.