Wilmington Harbor

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View of Wilmington harbor in 1870, showing the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad, which had been completed by Phineas Banning in 1869-the first railroad to the harbor. Before that, freight was transported to Los Angeles by ox carts and later by horse-drawn wagons.In 1542, Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo discovered the "Bay of Smokes". The south-facing San Pedro Bay was originally a shallow mudflat, too soft to support a wharf. Visiting ships had two choices: stay far out at anchor and have their goods and passengers ferried to shore or beach themselves.Phineas Banning greatly improved shipping when he dredged the channel to Wilmington in 1871 to a depth of 10 feet. The port handled 50,000 tons of shipping that year. Banning owned a stagecoach line with routes connecting San Pedro to Salt Lake City, Utah and to Yuma, Arizona, and in 1868 he built a railroad to connect San Pedro Bay to Los Angeles, the first in the area.