Episode 6. Phineas Banning Part 2.

 Hey folks in this next episode Michael Sanborn and I talk about Phineas Banning serving in the United States military, building the Los Angeles railroad in just under one year, his work on the Los Angeles Harbor, and about Banning also running for the California state senate.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey folks, in this next episode, Michael Sanborn and I talk about Phineas Banning serving in the United States military, Banning building the Los Angeles Railroad in just under one year, his work at the Los Angeles Harbor, and also running for the California State Senate. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

He's also involved with the military. They call him General Banning. So during the Civil War, he's given the title Brigadier General, which is the title wartime moment. So he also contracts to Fort Yuma. He's got a contract to hone upon the grapevine. So he's taking military contracts, government contracts, and all of these really start evolving. But it's not going to go far enough until you get the railroad. And once the railroad's put in place and connects Now we're finally, for the first time, we're connecting the east and the west coast. And so now everything can move. Everything can come in. Everything can go out. And we look at his accomplishments and in my mind as studying him for the last 29 years is that I think that was his greatest achievement. But when he got all of the railroad completed and the connections were made, And he was so good at the railroad that when it was completed, he had one year to build the railroad. We don't even get environmental impact reports done in a year. But when he passed that legislation, the state, and then he had to bring the passage of that back to Los Angeles and LA County and convince voters that, hey, I've got this legislation passed. We can now get a railroad to connect the harbor in Los Angeles and then start looking beyond. And he had to abide by the rules that were handed down to him, which said, you have a year. You have a year to complete both stations at Los Angeles and Wilmington, even though it's called the LA and SP Railroad. It's Wilmington and downtown Los Angeles at Commercial and Alameda were the first And he and a business partner, Henry Tishner, which he was very close to, they broke it up. And so Banning had to build both of the terminuses, and Tishner had to lay the line. And they had one year, and they got it all done. They had to find the metal to make the rails. They had to find the locomotives on the East Coast to be shipped out here. They had all kinds of hurdles, and he does this. In a year. Unfortunately, he loses his wife in that. So he's lost a wife. But he goes back and forth constantly, San Francisco, just to make sure all of this is working well and getting done and meeting contractors. Because we don't have a port of call. So whatever comes in for the LA Railroad is going into San Francisco, and then they've got to bring it down. It was just a monumental task. But I think the point I was trying to get to was, I think the railroad was his greatest achievement and what that did to change Southern California. But he thought that after all the railroad was done and passed and everything was completed, he made the statement that his commitment for the rest of his life is going to be the improvement of the harbor. And so... He, as a private citizen after all of this, he goes to Washington, D.C. twice to appropriate federal dollars to get the harbor breakwater and its first lighthouse, the Point Furman Lighthouse. So he gets that money as a private citizen, not as a politician, but as a private citizen. And that money comes back and then they start the construction, the dredging of the harbor, laying the first breakwater system out there. Dredging, of course, is nonstop. And a beautiful point for him to house. Quite the ambitious man.

SPEAKER_00: 4:25

Very. Can you describe the significance of the construction of Bannings Wharf and its impact on Los Angeles' access to maritime trade? We can start with the name

SPEAKER_01: 4:38

of the railroad. Sure. L-A-N-S-P. Yes. It's not San Pedro where they stopped the terminus. It was Wilmington. And the reason because of that was because it was not a dredged harbor. And there wasn't development breakwater. There wasn't development of proper wharfs and landings in San Pedro. So he knew in his mind, and he made the promise when he ran for state senator... that he was going to provide a deep water terminus in the port, and he kept his promise even after the election was over and he did his term. You've got to remember that the LNSP Railroad was only in existence for under three years, and then the Southern Pacific bought it. And the Southern Pacific was looking for that town that could connect the southern link coming out of San Francisco, and so they're looking at a course, San Diego. And Banning knew that by the time that railroad got down into Los Angeles, if we didn't have a link from the harbor, it's going to be decades before we even caught up with what the other ports are doing in California. He made the promise that it was going to happen. And so now they have to construct a trestle, a bridge that is going to go across from Wilmington into San Pedro for the train. And then when that happens, the momentum shifts to San Pedro. And so Wilmington at that point, as far as what Banning had created there in the 1860s, mid-70s, was now going to start going on the decline. Because San Pedro was quicker and a faster drop-off. The rail line was right to the wharf. It was the same at Wilmington also. But This is how it's changed when that connection was finally made to go over the bay and get into San Pedro. So the Wilmington connection stays in existence and continues, but not with the vigor and the vitalization that it initially

SPEAKER_00: 6:54

had. Are you just seeing now trains just shooting past Wilmington and straight into San Pedro? Is that how that's happening now?

SPEAKER_01: 7:06

Then, yeah, there's different landings. So San Pedro has the new one over the trestle. So with Wilmington, we know where the Alameda Corridor is. And that was basically the original line from Wilmington in 1869 to reach Los Angeles. That footprint is really the same one. But the amount of space that Banning's Landing had versus the space that San Pedro, the waterfront had. It just outdid him and it outdid Wilmington. But Banning was such an entrepreneur and a businessman that even though the Southern Pacific bought all of it, they couldn't manage all of it. So they made Banning the offer that, would you like to buy this back? And these are after all of the improvements are made that the Southern Pacific invested and put in place. And the Southern Pacific paid for the trestle. They paid for all of the architecture and the infrastructure that's needed to house railroads. And so Banning told them, yeah, I'd like to have it, but I don't have all the capital for it. He said, that's okay, we'll loan it to you. Wow. So he got all of it back, all of the land, all of everything that he sold, that was his. And he got it all back with improvements.

SPEAKER_00: 8:35

So there must have been something about the water, right? It was because you talk about the land and the space. And then what is it about the water that says, okay, this is an even bigger opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: 8:51

When you look at older maps of the basin there. So we've got East and the West basin. This would be massive deep water port, which it is today. Yeah. But, But back then, I'm sure it was every engineer's dream. Well, we also had several islands out there. We had Mormon Island. We had Smith Island. Except I believe Mormon Island is where U.S. Borax in the harbor actually set up

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

shop. Thanks for helping me make that connection. Taking from the learnings of Delaware and the learnings of the San Francisco port and being able to envision that. Wow, that is very amazing. I have a lot of questions here. It's funny because when we met on the porch of the mansion, you said, I don't know that I have enough stuff to talk about for an hour. And in my mind, I knew we'd go longer. And so folks, we're going to ask you to stay tuned and listen to part three, which will air in just a couple of weeks. Hey, thank you for listening today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to click download. Let me know if you have any stories to tell about the Harbor area. Email me at harborareapodcast at yahoo.com. That's harborareapodcast at yahoo.com. Take care and remember to treat each other kindly.