Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-11
WILMINGTON is
COMING PORT
OFTHE PACIFIC
GREAT HARB0R WILL BE CON-
STRUCTED
FUTURE OF CONSOLIDATED
CITIES ASSURED
Los Angeles to Pour Millions Of DOL
Iars Into Vast Enterprise to
Make the Greater
City
Rx GEORGE 3. HARRISON

The answer to "Why wilmington
is not difficult to any person VINO
knows Wilmington. 1t is point in
Los Angeles county with a tremendous
future. at the same time teeming with
much history in the past. Far-seeing
business men of Los Angeles nave
lately come to the conclusion that
large share of the handling of mef-
chandise and it's distribution from Los
Angeles must inevitably be carried on
at the citys industrial harbor-ahd
everything now points to Wilmington
as that place. =, ~.
Big business men like M. ii. Ne"
mark and f, w. Braun have admlttei
this situation. They go further ana say
that in time the jobbers will not only
have their large warehouses AT VIII
mington, but must of necessity locd's
their offices down there. Iney S@, s,i
give the answer to why Wllmlhgtoh
because they know the answer is pouhu
20 he demonstrated by great storage
buildings, by busy belt lines, by thou-
sands of tons of commerce passing over
the municipal wharVes. 1,u
More than four decades ago WI
mington was a port of some Importance
FORMER Mayor NJ. p. Snyder In
snserh at Terminal the other night, re-
called how. twenty-nine years ago, ne
came into Wilmington harbor by boat
and iourneved overland to the small
town of Los Angeles. Many OF tne
older and most prominent residents VI
Los Angeles obtained their nrst luea ol
Los Angeles county from the landing
at Wilmington.
Then, though there were no railroads,
Wilmington had the outlook of a great
future In the midst of the Things
which foretell the new development I'M
pending there are memoranda OF these
ms d
quarters and other buildings of the Old
fort. the old adobe gambling house, old
stage coaches, the hulk of the lighter
Moulton. Nearby in the bay are the
dredgers digging out channels when
will eventually make the inner pay
great public harbor
Great Harbor Assured
Alter Wilmington went back the frst
step toward the coming greatness was
in the determination of the Los Angeles
harbor commission to recover the tide
lands in Wilmington and San Pedro
for the people Now that this recovery
is virtually assured 1t is also assured
that q great harbor can be made IN
Wilmington bay. Nowadays great
harbor means, in fact, two harbors-a
commercial harbor and an industrial
harbor The latter is the one which Will
touch the mercantile warehouses the
lumber yards and the manufacturing
enterprises which must cluster about
the harbor. The former is the one
which meets the needs of the nervous,
embarrassing, over-ocean steamships.
which must dock and unload and be
gone as quickly as possible. Both are
necessary for the purpose of harbor,
but the harbors heart is the industrial
side; for this port 1T will be VIII
mington.
And there are few places where so
I,,, .lOY, for hA
million dollars expended at Wilmington
bay" said N. F. Breen, one Of WIZ
mington's best respected citizens, can
do more for making a harbor than So
100000 almost anywhere else" Ills
statement is not hard to prove and in
five or six years from now the world
will know the truth OF it.
Must Be Public Scheme
A better. safer, greater and more in
viting harbor in point of tolls can be
built around Wilmington than Is pos
sible at San Francisco. 1t can be done
only as a public enterprise, financed,
constructed, owned and managed by
the municipality. Nowhere is there
historical record of suoh a harbor ade
quately developed under private con-
troll, Private capital develops only what
1t needs for its own ends and holds
back the rest. Public financing is made
with an eye toward bringing more busi-
ness and greater population, with fore
sight for all concerned.
What this means. together with an
admirable reference to the changed con-
ditions at Wilmington since the early
days. J. T. Flynn. vice president of the
American Engineering and Construc-
tion company of Oakland, in his report
just published to the California River
and Harbor league on the Oakland
water front. Here Is a tribute to Will
mington and Los Angeles not embroiled
in any Los Angeles county prejudice.
Mr.. Flynns report is worth quoting at
) some length because it deals in an ex-
pert way with the tidelands question,
the need for public harbor and an
swers from an entirely outside source
the query why Wilmington" as