The earliest known photo of the original Banning residence on M St., taken by William Godfrey in 1873. (Photo courtesy of The Banning Museum)

It’s hard to imagine the Banning mansion, for years a stunning Wilmington landmark, as anything less than a gleaming historical showplace set in a pristine park.
But its future was clouded by uncertainty following the death in 1925 of the last family member living there, Hancock Banning,.
Family patriarch Phineas Banning built the structure in 1864 to replace his first house in Wilmington, a smaller structure on Canal Street (now Avalon Boulevard) not far from Banning’s Landing, the wharf where his ships docked in Los Angeles Harbor.
Born in Delaware in 1830, Banning came to the San Pedro area as a 21-year-old, one year after California became a state. (He chose the name Wilmington for the 640 acres of land he eventually bought near San Pedro to honor the Delaware capital where he was raised.) A true visionary, he quickly realized the transportation of goods would be key to the expansion of the rapidly growing Los Angeles area.
He began with stagecoach lines, but soon added shipping, thanks to the proximity of the natural harbor in San Pedro. Later, in 1869, he would open the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, the area’s first, which linked the port to the metropolis 20 miles to the north.
All of these enterprises quickly made Banning a rich man. He decided he needed a much larger house not only for his wife, Rebecca, and their three sons, but also for hosting social and political events befitting a man of his growing stature.
The Banning mansion in Wilmington, Calif. on Aug. 10, 2011. (Photo by Jeff Gretchen, The Daily Breeze/SCNG)
The earliest known photo of the original Banning residence on M St., taken by William Godfrey in 1873. (Photo courtesy of The Banning Museum)
A mule-drawn coach filled with people parks in front of the tree-shaded residence of Phineas Banning in Wilmington, circa 1900. (Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection)
A room at the Banning mansion decorated as it might have looked in 1881. Aug. 4, 2000. (Photo by Robert Casillas, The Daily Breeze/SCNG)
View inside the cupola atop the Banning mansion shows a telescope trained on Los Angeles Harbor. Undated. (Photo courtesy oi Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division)

The Banning residence was built in the Greek Revival style, popular among the rich Delaware elite in the early 1800s. The original 30-room home was three stories high, with a prominent second story balcony. A rooftop cupola was added soon after the house was built. From there, Banning could train his telescope on the shipping activity in the harbor.
Phineas Banning died at 54 in San Francisco in 1885 after his health began to fail in the early 1880s.
His sons, William, Joseph and Hancock, made many improvements to the residence at 401 West M Street following their father’s death. The house was enlarged and its surrounding grounds embellished.
The family’s Chinese cook, Charlie Lim Yong, famously planted a wisteria vine on the property in 1896 that grew massive. Its fame spread as did its tendrils, and an annual wisteria festival was inaugurated on the site in 1931. The event continues today as the Wisteria Regale, the Banning Museum’s annual fundraiser.
Joseph Banning gets credit for adding the mansion’s first indoor bathroom in 1893. Hancock Banning made many changes in the early 1900s, adding a kitchen, a ballroom and a nearby sunken garden by 1911.
Hancock’s wife, Anne, sold the mansion and grounds to the the City of Los Angeles in 1925 to cover estate taxes. This led to a critical moment in the mansion’s history, a March 10, 1927 election among the citizens of Wilmington to determine whether to develop the mansion and its surrounding 20 acres as a public park.
The residents voted overwhelmingly, 1281 for and 55 against, to do so. Banning Park soon became a popular destination for the community. The house itself was in need of sprucing up, however, and the family had removed most of its original furniture.
The city’s plans to develop the property further proceeded slowly, though the home was opened to the public on select occasions in 1931. Approval of the site as a California Historical Landmark was made contingent upon the donation of antiques from other local pioneer families to furnish the mansion.
Finally, in 1936, the city signed an agreement calling for the establishment of the mansion as a permanent historical museum, and it became California State Historical Landmark Number 147. At its official dedication ceremony on June 6, dignitaries abounded and congratulatory remarks from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt were read aloud to those assembled.
Financing for the much-needed refurbishing of the house and grounds continued to be slow in arriving thanks in part to Depression-era economics. Its transformation into a working museum was further stalled by the outbreak of World War II.
During the war, the U.S. Army commandeered the site, transforming the mansion into HQ for “Camp Banning.” The army stationed anti-air-craft and other units on the mansion’s grounds, built temporary barracks, and stationed a WAC unit at the park. The mansion’s furniture was put in storage for safekeeping.
The park offered temporary housing for veterans and their families for three years after the war. After that ended, Banning Park was returned to Wilmington’s residents. But first, it had to be rehabilitated.
The restored mansion finally opened its doors to an estimated 2,000 visitors three years later, on March 30, 1952. Since then, the Banning Museum and park has become the area’s crown jewel and an active historical center.
The City of Los Angeles added it as Historic-Cultural Monument 25 in 1963, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1971.
Sources:
“About Us,” Banning Museum website.
Daily Breeze archives.
Grand Ventures: The Banning Family and the Shaping of Southern California, by Tom Sitton, Huntington Library, 2010.
“Lecture on the Banning Museum Historic Structure,” video of presentation by Banning Residence Director Michael Sanborn, Dec. 16, 2020.
Los Angeles Times archives.
San Pedro News Pilot archives.
Wilmington Press Journal archives.

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