Phineas Banning

Phineas Banning (August 19, 1830 – March 8, 1885) was an American businessman, financier and entrepreneur.

Known as "The Father of the Port of Los Angeles," he was one of the founders of the town of Wilmington, in Los Angeles County, California, which was named for his birthplace. His drive and ambition laid the foundations for what would become one of the busiest ports in the world.

Besides operating a freighting business, Banning operated a stage coach line between San Pedro and Wilmington, and later between Banning, California, which was named in his honor, and Yuma, Arizona.

During the Civil War, he ceded land to the Union Army to build a fort at Wilmington, the Drum Barracks. He was appointed a brigadier general of the First Brigade of the militia, and used the title of general for the rest of his life.

Early life

Banning was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the seventh of 11 children to John Alford Banning (1790–1851) and Elizabeth Lowber (1792–1861). At age 13, he moved to Philadelphia to work in his oldest brother's law firm. By his late teens, Banning was working on the dockyards of Philadelphia. At the age of 20, he signed up to work a passage to a then-exotic destinationSouthern California.

California and enterprise

thumb|right|250px|Banning's Landing, Wilmington, 1870

Banning arrived in San Pedro, California, in 1851, after a long land and sea journey that included crossing the isthmus of Panama before taking another ship to California. The 21-year-old was ambitious and worked in the fishing village of San Pedro, initially as a store clerk, and later as a stagecoach driver on the line that connected the hamlet with the pueblo of Los Angeles, a town of less than 2,000 people 20 miles (30 km) to the north.

Banning was elected to a one-year term on the Los Angeles Common Council, the governing body of that city, beginning May 10, 1858, and ending May 9, 1859.

Banning began his own staging and shipping company. By the 1860s, Banning stagecoach wagons were traveling to Salt Lake City, the Kern River gold fields, the new military installation at Yuma, Arizona, the Mormon settlement at San Bernardino, and in an arc around the Southern California region.

1870s: Railroads, industries, and breakwaters

thumb|125px|

Between 1868 and 1869 he organized the construction of Southern California's first railroad, the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad which he sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1873.

Banning spent the 1870s in a frenzy of activity. As a California state senator, he campaigned for greater transportation connections to the city of Los Angeles and the growing port, his personal project. Banning eventually pushed through a plan for a small railroad linking Wilmington/San Pedro with the main city of Los Angeles, effectively halving the time necessary for the trip, but the plan was short-lived. The Southern Pacific Railroad began building track to connect Southern California to the greater national railroad lines, and demanded much of Los Angeles' prime real estate, an enormous sum of money, and Banning's small connector line railroad in exchange for adding Los Angeles as a terminus on the railroad. Realizing that Los Angeles would wither into nothingness if the company bypassed it, the city complied and Banning surrendered his hard-earned railroad.

Banning tragically died at age 54 at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, after being knocked down and run over by a passing express wagon.

Legacy

Banning's legacies lived on, and his dreams were realized with the federal approval of the Port of Los Angeles in the early 20th century, and the completion of a full breakwater in 1914, creating one of the world's busiest harbors. Banning's chief residence, the Banning House, was constructed in Wilmington in 1864. It is open to the public as a museum devoted to the Victorian era in California.

Notes

External links

A Beacon in the Wilderness: The History of the Port of Los Angeles