Site of Port Los Angeles Long Wharf

Collis Huntington wanted the federal harbor money spent where his railroad already owned the waterfront. He and Senator John P. Jones ran double track out over Santa Monica Bay to a wharf finished in 1893, the longest in the world, and it pulled shipping off San Pedro. Stephen White argued in the Senate that a harbor belonging to one railroad is not a harbor, and a federal board chose San Pedro in 1897. The wharf carried freight until 1913, then came up in pieces. Nothing of it is left.

What the plaque says

In 1893 the Southern Pacific Railroad Company completed its 4,720-foot wharf which served as a deep water port for the Los Angeles area. After San Pedro became Los Angeles's official harbor in 1897, shipping activity at Port Los Angeles declined. Ultimately abandoned and dismantled, no trace remained of what had been the longest wooden pier in the world. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 881 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Pacific Palisades Historical Society, July 18, 1976.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Monica Pier — 2.3 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.
• Los Encinos State Historic Park — 9.1 mi
  A spring that never stopped running, the village it fed for thousands of years, and the rancho that took the ground away.
• Leonis Adobe — 11 mi
  Miguel Leonis left his estate to relatives in France and called Espíritu Chijulla his housekeeper; she spent sixteen years proving in court that she was his wife.
• Bruce's Beach — 11 mi
  Willa and Charles Bruce ran a seaside resort here for Black families until the city took the land in 1924. It came back in 2022.

More markers nearby

• Old Santa Monica Forestry Station — 0.8 mi
• Serra Springs — 4.1 mi
• Harold Lloyd Estate (Greenacres) — 7.0 mi
• Adamson House at Malibu Lagoon State Beach — 8.7 mi