Banning were the prime movers who developed this. Gen. Banning is one of the most picturesque figures of the early American period and was very active in every field of the development of transportation. At one time he was doing a large business freighting supplies over the Mormon trail to Salt Lake City and the territory beyond. And he was largely responsible for the building of that first railway, the San Pedro-Los Angeles, an improvement which put an end to the exciting stage races that introduced to their future home both those chroniclers of early days, Harris Newmark and Horace Bell, wild rides to a wilder community. People today sometimes deplore a “crime wave,” but to live up to the proportions set in 1853 Los Angeles should stage about four hundred murders a day every day in the year, for that year there was an average of more than one killing a day in a population of about twenty-five hundred.
It was in 1858, I believe, that Gen. Banning promoted the town New San Pedro, later naming it for his birthplace in Delaware, Wilmington. Here he built his home and planted the garden that remains today. I remember calling there once with my mother and seeing a most lovely little girl out among the flowers.
During the time of the Civil War the Government established Drum Barracks in Wilmington, thus adding to its importance, and it was one of the government warehouses, later abandoned, which was purchased by the Alamitos Co., taken down, moved the ten miles over to the ranch and rebuilt, where it can
