Banning Park

Phineas Banning came out from Delaware in 1851 and spent the rest of his life arguing that a mudflat could be a port. He founded Wilmington in 1858 and named it for his hometown, pressed the case from the state senate, and in 1869 opened Southern California's first railroad, twenty-one miles from the harbor to Los Angeles. The twenty-three-room Greek Revival house he built here in 1864 was that argument in redwood and brick. His family lived in it until 1925, and the city took the grounds in 1927.

What the plaque says

Built in 1864. Home of Phineas Banning, father of the Los Angeles Harbor.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Monica Pier — 20 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 23 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
• Colorado Street Bridge — 25 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.

More markers nearby

• Drum Barracks — 0.3 mi
• S.S. Catalina — 2.9 mi
• Site of Home of Diego Sepúlveda — 3.1 mi
• Liberty Hill Site — 3.6 mi