Early settlers included Lorenzo Carter, whose land holdings included much of what makes up today's East Bank entertainment district, including Whiskey Island, which was created when the mouth of the river was straightened by the Corps of Engineers.
Bonneville Salt Flats | Cape Flats Sand Fynbos | LeBreton Flats | Footrot Flats | Cape Flats | Barton Flats, California | Bailey Flats, California | The Beast of Yucca Flats | Rocky Flats Plant | Lebreton Flats | Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale | Bonneville salt flats | Barton Flats | Anthony Cardoza as KGB agent in ''The Beast of Yucca Flats |
At 16:20 BST (15:20 UTC) on 3 July 2009, a fire broke out in one of the flats of Lakanal House.
Reformer Jacob Riis had visited The Flats in the early 1910s and declared them worse than anything in New York; a survey conducted by the city in the 1937 deemed 20% of the city's dwellings "unfit for human habitation," including most of The Flats.
Drummer Ken Schalk, bassist Mike MacIvor, and guitarist John Lamacchia have been involved in a free-jazz side project named Ghosts of the Canal, who have thus far released two full-length albums, Sessions from the Flats (1999) and Five Episodes from the Subconscious (2002), as well as two non-album tracks which appeared on the bonus disc of Candiria's The C.O.M.A. Imprint.
The noted English naturalist, William John Burchell, remarked in 1811 that the deep sand of the Flats made travel by cart or wagon extremely difficult.
"One mile up the river from the last point is a small creek of fresh water, issuing from an extensive lagoon clothed with arborescent species of Metrosideros of great beauty. The banks are covered with the most interesting plants, amongst which I observed two species of Calytris, a species of Acacia with a scolopendrous-stem, and several Papilionaceous plants. The Angophoras on the flats are gigantic."
To get into the Flats requires going through the gate at the Kaena Point Satellite Tracking Station right across from Yokohama Bay (also known as KeawaŹ»ula Bay).
The flats thus initially attracted a much wider range of tenants than would usually be found in a high rise council block, including the actress Noele Gordon (who appreciated their closeness to the ATV television studios) and many gay men who found it convenient for the nearby gay bars.