Part of the second floor of the Wilmington City Hall was used as the city’s library. Undated photo.

The present-day Wilmington Municipal building at 544 N. Avalon Blvd. is home to the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce and the Wilmington Neighborhood Council. 2008 photo.

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By Sam Gnerre

South Bay History Columnist

We know Wilmington now as its own unique community within the city limits of Los Angeles, but it wasn’t always that way.

For a brief period, Wilmington was its own independent, incorporated city.

Here’s how it happened.

The community of Wilmington is one of the oldest in Los Angeles. The area first was called New San Pedro, until 1863, when it officially was renamed Wilmington.

It was known for its shallow-water port, its Civil War-era drum barracks outpost and the activities of its most prominent resident, shipping magnate Phineas Banning, whose mansion built in 1864 was one of the Wilmington’s centerpieces.

A shrewd investment by Banning led to the community’s early prosperity. He financed the construction of the first railroad line in Los Angeles, the 21-mile-long Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad, that connected Wilmington and its harbor to downtown Los Angeles.

The resulting business activity led to the town’s growth from 359 in 1870 to more than 1,000 residents by the mid-1880s.

But nearby San Pedro, which had been languishing, began to eclipse its neighbor when the Southern Pacific railroad built a facility there. Its port was also deeper and more accommodating to larger ships, and Wilmington’s fortunes began to decline.

The arrival of the Pacific Electric railroad line to Wilmington in 1904 began a new uptick in the town’s fortunes. Its population grew again, and the town fathers began looking into incorporation in 1905, not wanting the settlement to be swallowed up in annexation by Long Beach or San Pedro.

Residents voted 92-4 in favor of incorporation in an election held on Dec. 22, 1905, but it would take another two years of legal wrangling until incorporation finally became officially sanctioned in 1907.

Once Wilmington’s status as a sixth-class city had been confirmed, the work on its new city hall began immediately.

Architect C.H. Russell was hired to design the city hall, a two-story Classical Revival building topped by a dome, and the contracting firm of Kelly and Hallett was enlisted to build it.

Ground was broken in January 1908 on the southeast corner of Canal (now Avalon Boulevard) and Eighth (now I) streets, the current site of the Wilmington Town Square Park.

The small but impressive structure opened a few months later in July 1908, and its new occupants moved in.

The city’s fire department took the basement. The city treasurer, marshall, tax collector and street department occupied the first floor, with the city council chamber and library on the second floor.

As it turned out, Wilmington’s existence as an independent entity wouldn’t last long.

During this same period, the battle to become the official port for Los Angeles between several cities — San Pedro, Wilmington, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica — had intensified.

Wilmington’s shallow, muddy harbor needed to be dredged in order for it to compete for the port award, but the small city couldn’t afford the have the work done, and the federal government couldn’t finance the needed improvements since most of the waterfront area was privately owned.

The city of Los Angeles began applying pressure to both Wilmington and San Pedro to forfeit their independence and consolidate with the newly sprawling metropolis. It had already annexed the “shoestring strip” connecting its southern city limit with the Harbor City area in 1906 in preparation for establishing its port in the area.

Wilmington residents considered that factor, along with other benefits their small city would gain from consolidation with L.A. — better streets, new schools, improved police and fire protection among them — and voted 107-61 in favor of the idea in an Aug. 4, 1909 election.

A week later, San Pedro officially became the home for the Port of Los Angeles when its residents also voted in favor of consolidation with L.A.

So Wilmington’s status as an independently incorporated city ended just under four years after its citizens had voted overwhelmingly in favor of the idea. And its beautiful new city hall served in that official role for just a little more than one year after it opened its doors.

Now rechristened as the Wilmington Municipal Building, the city hall continued to serve many uses. In 1910, the establishment of the community’s first separate public high school was approved by the Los Angeles School District.

Wilmington High School would only operate on the second floor of the Municipal Building for two years. A permanent Wilmington High building opened on Anaheim Street facing Avalon Boulevard in 1912 and served as Wilmington’s high school until Banning High opened in 1926.

Other civic groups and government agencies continued to use the building over the next couple of decades.

Unfortunately, the damage it sustained in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake spelled the end for the Wilmington Municipal Building. The quake damaged it severely enough for it to be condemned, and the building was demolished shortly after World War II ended. (The same quake also spelled the end for the original Wilmington High School building.)

Wilmington did build a new municipal building. It’s situated at at 544 N. Avalon Blvd., just a few blocks down from the original building’s location.

Sources: Calisphere.org; “City of Wilmington, Wilmington City Hall, Wilmington, CA;” Pacific Coast Architecture Database; Los Angeles Herald files; Los Angeles Times files; “Pre-Consolidation Communities of Los Angeles, 1862-1932: LA Citywide Historic Context Statement,” prepared for the City of Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning’s Office of Historic Resources, July 2016; Wilmington, Images of America series, by Simie Seaman and Hank and June Osterhoudt, Wilmington Historical Society, Susan Ogle, Drum Barracks Civil War Museum, and Michael Sanborn, Banning Residence Museum, Arcadia Publishing, 2008.