Offshore Explorer
Portrait of an American Mariner Phineas Banning
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Episode notes
Father of the Port of Los Angeles
The American mariner does not exist in a vacuum. Commerce and war are the two key principles of purpose for the sailor. The third principle of purpose, exploration, is a distant third. If the American mariner was the central character in the movie about America, the supporting characters would be the entrepreneurs and visionaries that facilitated their direction and motive. The lead supporting character in the story of Los Angeles, who was both a mariner and a visionary businessman, was Phineas Banning. Known as the “Father of the Port of Los Angeles,” he built the first breakwater in San Pedro to protect ships from the sea.
Phineas Banning was working in the dockyards in Philadelphia. At 20 years old, he signed up to work a passage to a then exotic destination–Southern California.