Getting There: Building L.A.’s Transportation Network

It was a muddy village known as Goosetown, but some referred to it as “Banning’s Hog-Waller.” The year was 1854, when entrepreneur Phineas Banning, known as the “Father of Los Angeles Harbor,” purchased 2,400 acres of Rancho San Pedro waterfront property from Manuel Dominguez for $12,000 and renamed it New San Pedro. Not long after that, Banning again renamed the town Wilmington after his hometown in Delaware.

Using hand pumps and mud scows, Banning and his men dredged the shallow pools, filled in the marshes and built a pier at the foot of what is now Avalon Boulevard.

Banning later became a U.S. senator and presented to Congress blueprints for the harbor’s first breakwater and dredging project. In 1871, $200,000 in federal funds were appropriated, and work began on deepening the main channel entrance by 10 feet and building a 6,700-foot jetty between Deadman’s Island (which no longer exists) and Rattlesnake Island--later renamed Terminal Island. Almost $1 million in federal funds was approved between 1871 and 1892 for additional improvements to the harbor.

In 1888, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce was formed to bring in more trade, and city planners proposed a deeper harbor that would accommodate bigger ships. A two-mile, $5-million breakwater was planned for just north of Point Fermin.

The plan prompted a long, bitter fight between Santa Monica and Los Angeles over the future of the harbor. Southern Pacific Railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington bought up most of the property in Santa Monica and was determined to make it the Port of Los Angeles.

Led by state Sen. Stephen M. White (D-Los Angeles), Los Angeles won the battle for San Pedro, which was annexed along with Wilmington on Aug. 28, 1909. White stood up to Huntington and his political power, and grateful Los Angeles citizens collected $25,000 to cast a statue of White, which stood at the municipal courthouse on Hill Street until about a year ago, when it was moved to the entrance at Cabrillo Beach.

President William McKinley pressed a button at the White House on April 16, 1899, activating the rail car that dumped the first load of stone for the nine-mile San Pedro breakwater that was completed 11 years later.

Almost a century has passed as more concrete and macadam have covered the coastal marshes. The bustling seaport has been absorbed by the 7,500-acre Port of Los Angeles.

The Port Today:

* The port has experienced extraordinary growth, with profits last year reaching a record $81.4 million.

* The port provides more than 20,000 jobs in the harbor, and it is estimated that an additional 210,000 jobs and 20,000 businesses in Southern California are indirectly related to port activity.

* The world’s largest man-made harbor covers 28 miles of waterfront and handles more than 3,500 vessel arrivals and 66 million tons of cargo annually.