Port Closes Its Books on a Legendary Salvage King

As Los Angeles Port Warden Edward Henry tells it, there were days when the harbor was littered with “characters with big ideas” about making it rich.

Chief among them was Al Kidman, a husky ex-logger from the woods of Idaho who came to Los Angeles in the 1960s to make a fortune salvaging old wrecks and sunken ships.

“There were other salvagers around, but there was only one Al Kidman,” Henry said. “He would take an old raggedy boat and do things with it that you wouldn’t believe possible.”

As the champion of derelict vessels, though, Kidman got into trouble with the Harbor Department, port officials said. Six years ago, with authorities hot on his trail for allegedly docking a capsized barge in the harbor illegally, Kidman is believed to have skipped town.

Bill for $49,000

Kidman allegedly left behind a harbor floor dotted with wrecks that officials say he sank after salvaging them, and a bill from the Harbor Department for $49,000--the estimated fee for docking the capsized barge New California for 13 months. The wrecks have long since been cleared away, but port officials only last week acknowledged that the salvage master probably has left town for good and won’t be paying the bill.

The Board of Harbor Commissioners, following the advice of the city attorney, branded the bill uncollectible and authorized the Harbor Department to write it off as loss. The action officially clears Kidman from the department’s financial books, but as Henry and other port officials who knew Kidman said, nobody has forgotten the junkman from Idaho who was the wildest of a wild breed of salvage pirates.

“The old-timer guys, the entrepreneurs like I like to call them, have all disappeared,” said Edward Hill, who as chief wharfinger for the harbor collects dock fees.

“They have no opportunity anymore. The types of vessels they went for have disappeared, and wharf space is now so valuable and costly there is no opportunity for squatters.”

Stripped for Parts

The salvagers, who port officials said probably did not number more than a handful at a time, searched out old wooden barges, obsolete military vessels and, occasionally, larger ships that ran aground and had to be abandoned. Some would illegally tie the vessels somewhere in the harbor, authorities said, strip them for their parts, and now and then find an investor to help them pay to restore them. Others never had a problem with the law, they said.

Jonathon P. Nave, a deputy city attorney who works for the Harbor Department, said Kidman had the annoying habit of abandoning wrecks he no longer needed in the outer harbor, where they interfered with shipping lanes and generally made a mess of things.

According to records in the city attorney’s office, the Harbor Department obtained court orders against Kidman involving at least seven of his vessels, and in 1976 was awarded a $26,076 judgment because he failed to remove several derelict and sinking vessels from the harbor.

The records say that Kidman never paid the judgment, and Nave said the court action and all others against Kidman have been dropped or dismissed because the vessels have since been removed or the city has acknowledged that Kidman is unable to pay. If Kidman should surface in Los Angeles, however, Nave said his office would reopen at least the file on the New California and go after the $49,000 docking fee.

Hill, who knew Kidman for the nearly two decades that the salvager worked out of Los Angeles Harbor, said he has a three-inch-thick file on the alleged misdeeds of Kidman.

“He harassed my office for years,” he said. “He would always try to find some place that was underdeveloped, that just had mud banks, and use it (to dock) his vessels. He was what we call the original entrepreneur: Use everything that someone else owns, but don’t pay anyone for anything.”

Over the years, Kidman allegedly dumped the ex-Navy tug White Shoals, the barges Coronado and Jones, the tug Beverly Jean and two other unnamed wooden barges in the harbor, Nave said. He illegally docked countless other vessels, he said--dockings the port warden and other port officials said they easily traced to Kidman because he openly worked on the vessels while they were in the harbor.

Stored on Bottom

“Al used the bottom of the harbor for storage,” Henry said. “He would sink things, and when he needed something off them he would go out and dive for them. It really creates a hazard.”

In early 1979, Nave said in a report to harbor commissioners, Kidman became “the secret owner” of the New California, which had capsized in the Port of Long Beach and had been dragged to Los Angeles harbor. The barge, submerged near Berth 116, was tied to the nearby bank with a rope and Kidman worked diligently--albeit in vain--to right the vessel for salvage, Nave said.

Nave filed a nuisance suit against Kidman, and began billing him for dockage fees for the New California. In the report to the commissioners, Nave wrote, “it was the first and only time anyone has been billed dockage for a sunken vessel in this way,” but the attorney, who spent years following Kidman in and out of court on alleged violations in the harbor, said the extraordinary effort was the only way to get the salvage master out of the harbor.

“He didn’t recognize that the boundaries of the law existed,” Nave said. “He was a complete scofflaw.”

Kidman, who Nave said was apparently feeling harassed, left town a short time later, never paying the bill, Nave said.

‘Wanted Him Out’

“I never really thought we would get the money,” Nave said, “but I just wanted him out of the harbor, and it worked. It cost us about $100,000 to clean out nine vessels he abandoned out there.”

Nobody can say for sure where Kidman went. Hill said he heard that the salvager went to South Carolina to buy a “dead fleet” of Navy mine sweepers, but that a deal to finance the purchase went sour. Hill also heard that Kidman was seriously injured in a car accident. Henry said he heard a rumor that Kidman had been shot in Louisiana.

In his report, Nave described Kidman as “a person without traceable means or income.”

“In the course of his legal entanglements with the port, we learned that he has no assets, no insurance, no bank accounts, no current driver’s license, and claims to have filed no state or federal income tax returns for many years,” Nave wrote.

While Nave and Hill said they wouldn’t mind if they never saw Kidman again, Henry said he misses the 6-foot, 250-pound salvager.

“He was very likable and a hard worker, and he was always honest with me,” Henry said. “He kept us busy, and you always had to keep your eye on him, but he was a port character.”