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| HISTORY OF SAN PEDRO BY MAUREEN MEGOWAN, REMAX PALOS VERDES REALTY Portuguese explorer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, while sailing under the flag of Spain, was the first European to set eyes upon the barren hills and plains of what was to be Rancho San Pedro. On October 8, 1542 he sailed into San Pedro Bay. There, he noticed several wild fires burning in the surrounding hills producing dark plumes of smoke. He named the area "Bahia de los Fumos" which was Spanish for "Bay of Smokes". This bay with a shallow estuary held this title for over fifty years, until changed by another Spanish sea faring explorer. On November 26, 1602, Sebastian Viscaino sailed into the same bay and renamed it Ensenada de San Andres (Bay of Saint Andrew), mistakenly thinking he arrived on the feast day of Saint Andrew. In actuality he entered the bay on the feast day of Saint Peter, Bishop of Alexandria. In 1734, Cabrera Bueno, a famed navigator and cosmologist discovered Vizcaino's error and renamed the bay San Pedro, in honor of the martyred saint. Today, the port community of San Pedro still retains the name. The site, at the southern end of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, on the west side of San Pedro Bay, was used by Spanish ships starting in the 1540s. The vessels that traded at San Pedro anchored at a point on the northwest side of San Pedro, slightly northeast of Point Fermin, off the coast of Rancho Palos Verdes. Though later known as Timms' Point, this anchorage was first called Sepulveda Landing. Regular settlement began in 1769 as part of the effort to populate California, although trade restrictions encouraged more smuggling than regular business. When Mexico won its independence, the trade restriction were lifted, and the town flourished Mexican governor Fages bestowed a provisional grant to Juan Jose Dominquez, a member of the 1769 Spanish Portola Expedition to Alta, Californian, in March 1784, allowing him to graze his cattle on 75,000 acre Rancho San Pedro. This was the first private land grant in Southern California. Rancho San Pedro stretched from Compton to Redondo Beach to Long Beach, and included the Palos Verdes Peninsula and, of course, San Pedro. Juan Capistrano Sepulveda and Jose Loreto Sepulveda, the two eldest sons of Don Jose Sepulveda, in 1834 were granted a judicial decree by Governor Jose Figueroa of 31,600 acres of Rancho San Pedro to the Sepulvedas (including the town of San Pedro), which was intended to settle the dispute between the Dominquez and Sepulveda families. ( See the History of the South Bay for a discussion of the early Spanish land grants). By 1835, San Pedro had become the most important port on the Pacific Coast. Because of shallow water and mud flats, ships had to drop anchor about a mile off shore, and small boats would then transfer passengers and cargo ashore. These would often capsize, spilling both passengers and cargo into the muddy water. During this time, the Sepulvedas built a crude dock and landing at the base of cliffs near present day Fourteenth and Beacon Streets in San Pedro, which became known as Sepulveda Landing. Two major geographical features of San Pedro Harbor at this time was Deadman's Island (which was later dredged and became part of the current breakwater) and Rattlesnake Island (which later became Terminal Island.  San Pedro in 1850, Dead Man's Island in the background Bones discovered on Deadman's Island during the removal of the Island for the construction of the San Pedro breakwater. Photo dated 1928, courtesy of California University Dominquez Hills archives In 1851, 21 year old Phineas Banning arrived in San Pedro from Philadelphia. Banning, and his partner, George Alexander, soon began operating a stagecoach service from San Pedro. When August Timms bought the Sepulveda Landing, early in 1852, Banning was concerned (Sepulveda Landing then became known as "Timms Landing").  Monument for Timms' Point and Landing When word came from Washington that San Pedro would soon be declared an official port of entry with its own customhouse, Banning negotiated to buy a tract of land from the Sepulvedas, located near Timm's Landing, and promptly built his own wharf. In November 1854, Banning and a group of investors (J.G Downey, Don Benito Wilson, and William Sanford) purchased 2,400 acres adjacent to San Pedro, for port expansion. This land later became the city of Wilmington, after Banning's Delaware birthplace.  Bannings Landing, Wilmington, 1870  Phineas Banning, 1883 The military has had a long history in San Pedro. Camp Drum was established as a five company post originally named Camp San Pedro in January 1862, and located one mile from Wilmington, now a part of Los Angeles, on land donated by Phineas Banning. This post until 1 December 1863 called itself Camp Drum; it was thereafter designated as Drum Barracks. It was named by the War Department in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Drum, assistant adjutant general of the Department of California. Drum Barracks was a footnote in U.S. Military History when it participated in the grand experiment of utilizing camels in troop movements. In 1863, Major Clarence E. Bennett, post commander, complained, "They had been kept at this post a long time on forage when in San Bernardino and various places within 100 miles of here they could have been subsisted without the expenditure of one cent for forage." He recommended the 36 camels at Drum be tested for service across Mojave Desert and be shipped to Fort Mojave because almost all grass at Drum was gone "and in little time the plains for miles and miles here will be perfectly bare." He advised they be carefully trained and tended by "an energetic officer whose conduct was characterized by sobriety and integrity.- He blamed failure of previous camel use on fact government employees "regard service with camels extremely unpleasant." He said, "In appearance camels are extremely ugly, in gait very rough, in herding inclined to wander, and with their long strides they make haste slowly, keeping their herders on the go; they offer no facilities for stealing." The idea was not approved and camels were auctioned off at Benicia Depot the next year.  Camels at Drum Barracks In late 1870, the camp was officially abandoned. Only 90 men remained on the post whose structures were deteriorating rapidly. By 1871, all had left with their equipment and stores transferred to Fort Yuma. On July 31, 1873 the camps buildings were sold at an auction. Banning bought five of them for a sum of $2,917 with his business partner, D.B. Wilson, buying one for $200. The land was returned to Banning and Wilson. Drum Barracks lives today as the restored junior officers quarters. There is the powder magazine but it has deteriorated and is too far from the museum to be counted. The mansions 14 rooms contain Civil War artifacts, weapons, paintings of Barracks commanders, a library dedicated to the study of the Civil War and southern California history and several rooms laid out as they might have appeared during the period In the late 1860's Banning realized that for San Pedro Harbor to become a center of commerce, that three things needed to be accomplished: Building a railroad, constructing a break water, and dredging the harbor to accommodate large ships and to allow them to dock directly at the wharfs. In October 1869, construction was completed on the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad, Southern California's first railroad. On March 2, 1871, Congress voted an appropriation for construction of a rock jetty from the lower end of Rattlesnake Island to Dead Man's Island. In 1872, the Southern Pacific Railroad agreed to run their railroad through Los Angeles and purchased the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad. In 1875, a competitive railroad, the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, was constructed from Santa Monica to Los Angeles, with a 1,700 foot wharf. By 1877, however, the Southern Pacific, after drastically lowering rates, drove the new railroad into ruin, and purchased it for less than half of what it cost to build. In 1881, they built an extension of the Los Angeles and San Pedro railroad across the Wilmington Lagoon on pilings to a point near Timms Point, thus enabling direct railroad access to the deep water wharf. Phineas Banning died in 1882, but his dream of making San Pedro a major port of entry to the United States would soon be realized. Soon, two new railroads entered the picture, competing with San Pedro as the dominant port for the Los Angeles area. The Sante Fe railroad constructed a wharf in Redondo Beach, which shipped a considerable amount of lumber from there. On April 13, 1892, the Dominguez heirs sold the Rattlesnake Island to a competing railroad, the Los Angeles and Terminal Island Railroad Company. Rattlesnake Island was known as such because it was home to a large population of rattlesnakes who migrated down the Los Angeles River. The named was changed to Terminal Island by the railroad company because of the terminus of the rail line established there. In 1891, a survey had been commissioned as to a recommendation for the location for continued funding and construction of a deep water port for Southern California. This survey had recommended San Pedro as the desired location for the port. Collis P. Huntington, who now headed up the Southern Pacific Railroad, had become annoyed by the competition of the Los Angeles and Terminal Island Railroad, as well as the Sante Fe Railroad in Redondo Beach, so began a vigorous lobbying campaign to designate Santa Monica Bay for harbor development, since the Southern Pacific Railroad completely controlled this option. By 1893, Southern Pacific's railroad extension and wharf in Santa Monica were in full operation. In 1896, an appropriations bill was approved by a congressional committee to fund the construction of a breakwater in Santa Monica, but an amendment was passed to the bill calling for a new commission to be appointed to review the best location for a deep water port. The Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis and U.S. Senator Stephen White pushed for federal support of the Port of Los Angeles at San Pedro Bay. The matter was settled when San Pedro was endorsed in 1897 by a commission headed by Rear Admiral John C. Walker . Finally in 1898, San Pedro was selected for the port improvements appropriation, and construction began on the new Federal breakwater project in San Pedro. This intense congressional battle was dubbed the "battle for a free port", because it was feared that with the Southern Pacific's monopoly of the Santa Monica port, that there would be no competition at the new port.  Port of Los Angeles 1899 In 1888, the War Department took control of a tract of land next to the bay, and added to it in 1897 and 1910. This became Fort MacArthur in 1914, and was a coastal defense site for many years, which also included a Nike missile site in the White Point area. In 1978, the Secretary of the Interior transferred ownership of the White Point U.S. naval reservation to the City of Los Angeles to be used for recreational purposes.
In the early part of this century, the Port bustled with longshore gangs unloading millions of board feet of lumber for local construction projects. Thousands of commercial fishermen and workers in a dozen canneries were involved in catching and processing tuna. More than 20,000 ship builders were working in four yards on various cargo and tanker vessels. Busy and colorful commercial areas sprang up adjacent to the Port to accommodate these workers as well as the ship crews that would be in port of up to 10 days at a time.
Between the turn of the 20th century and WWII, the White Point area of San Pedro was home to a thriving Japanese community of abalone fisherman and farmers. In 1899, Japanese fisherman leased beach front property at White Point from Ramon Sepulveda with the intention of establishing an abalone fishery at that location. By 1903, they had earned enough money to construct a cannery at the fishery. After the fishery closed, the area became a Japanese farming community and a resort locale. In 1917, Japanese constructed a sea side resort centered around a sulfur sulphur spring at the base of the cliffs. The resort consisted of a two story hotel and restaurant, three salt water plunges, an enclosed boating area, and a bathhouse. In 1933, however, an earthquake sealed off sulfur sulphur springs, and depressed economic conditions forced the closure of the resort.
When the bridge opened in 1963, the toll was 25 cents in each direction. In 1983, the toll increased to 50 cents for westbound traffic but became free for eastbound traffic. In 2000, toll was removed. Prior to the bridge's construction, the Terminal Island Ferry transported cars and trucks to Terminal Island. The bridge is named after California Assemblyman Vincent Thomas of San Pedro. |
