Chances are if you’ve visited Newport Beach before, you’re familiar with Balboa Island .

The area has its quirks and charm from the first frozen banana stand that became an inspiration for TV’s “ Arrested Development ” to becoming a hot spot for holiday tourists thanks to an F1 racecar turned holiday decor on a family’s lawn.

However, none of that would have been possible without the Balboa Island Ferry.

RELATED: ‘100 years of back and forth’: Balboa Island Ferry marks its centennial

The Balboa Island Ferry was pitched more than a century ago, as a way to get prospective land buyers from the Balboa Peninsula, across the Newport Bay, to a large swatch of sand that had been formed to make a small island that would soon be known as Balboa Island.

Back in the early 1900s, Newpor

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