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

• The Banning Museum — steps away
  The man who made a harbor out of an open bay: freight, dredging, the first railroad in Southern California, and a cupola for watching ships.
• Drum Barracks — 0.3 mi
  The Union Army built its Southern California headquarters in a county that had voted against Lincoln two to one, and stabled the Army camels here.
• The Port of Los Angeles — 3.7 mi
  The busiest container port in the country, sitting on ground that was dredged into existence: marsh, then landfill, then Pier 400.
• Terminal Island and Furusato — 4.1 mi
  Three thousand Japanese Americans built a village here they called Furusato, and in February 1942 were given forty-eight hours to leave it.

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