For the vast majority of the 20th century, Long Beach, California, was not just an airport town but also a hub of aircraft manufacturing. Behind tall fences along Lakewood Boulevard, Douglas (a manufacturer that would later become McDonnell Douglas) ran what would go down in history as one of the most successful and consequential assembly lines in the history of the American aerospace industry. This was a place where wartime production would eventually give way to the jet age, and a place where successive programs gradually reshaped the local economy, the skyline, and the soundscape overhead. This story is really a numbers piece, but it is also really about what those numbers may mean. Evaluating how many aircraft were produced sounds simple until one decides what counts, primarily when it comes to complete airframes, major assemblies, prototypes, customer deliveries, and how one chooses to attribute output across multiple different merger eras.