A Future for the Past : Wilmington residents form a historical society to preserve the city’s rich heritage.

When Phineas P. Banning founded the town of Wilmington 130 years ago, the state of California was just 8 years old, San Pedro was not yet in existence and Los Angeles was but a growing pueblo.

Wilmington prospered with the growth of its port, and so did Banning, whose mansion is the historical centerpiece of the community today. The Civil War touched Wilmington as well--President Lincoln sent Maj. Richard Coulter Drum to build a camp there, and today, the Drum Barracks remain as testimony to the Union soldiers who served in this western outpost.

Dubious Reputation

Yet despite this rich and lengthy past, Wilmington--which residents say is often portrayed as little more than a haven for crime and heavy industry--has never had a historical society.

Now, a group of residents, led by Loraine Roberts of the Banning Park neighborhood, have formed the Wilmington Historical Society in an effort to preserve what remains of Wilmington’s historic structures and gather photographs and information about what is already gone.

The group’s next meeting is Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Drum Barracks, 1052 Banning Blvd.

Roberts said she became interested in Wilmington’s history because her family has lived in the community for generations. Her grandfather, C. P. Roberts, owned the Wilmington Press-Journal, which ceased publication in 1975.

Roberts said she would like to “get back Wilmington, what it used to be like. . . . I want to preserve the old history of Wilmington . . . to preserve landmarks.”

The society’s first project involves trying to save a former German Methodist church and parsonage on Lomita Boulevard at the Wilmington-Carson border. Technically, the buildings are in Carson, but Roberts said residents feel as though they are in Wilmington.

According to Roberts, the white clapboard parsonage has the same floor plan as that of the majestic Banning residence. The church has been converted into a garage. The buildings, which are privately owned and next to a poultry farm, have been sold and are slated for demolition, she said.

Roberts said the society hopes to arrange for the buildings to be moved to a vacant city-owned lot at Broad Avenue and Opp Street in Wilmington.

However, Susan Pritchard, deputy to Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, said the lot is controlled by the Los Angeles Housing Authority, which has plans to use it.

Despite that, Roberts said she and the society will press forward with their attempt to save the buildings.

She said the society is interested in other projects as well, such as preservation of the Drum Barracks powder magazine at Opp Street and Eubank Avenue, built in 1863 to house ammunition during the Civil War.

According to Marge O’Brien, director of the Drum Barracks museum, the powder magazine was hidden for years inside a house that had been built around it. Its existence was not widely known until the house was torn down in 1982. Now, she said, “it is disintegrating rapidly.”

Both O’Brien and Art Almeida, vice president of the San Pedro Bay Historical Society in San Pedro, hope that the new society will direct its efforts toward preserving the powder magazine.

‘Pet Project’

“I told them that should be their pet project,” Almeida said. “That’s a beautiful relic.”

It was Almeida, in fact, who spawned the idea of a Wilmington Historical Society when he suggested it to the Banning Park Neighborhood Assn. last year. Almeida said that although the San Pedro Bay Historical Society had intended to serve the entire bay area, including Wilmington, “it’s just too much, what we have to do here in San Pedro.”

“Their history is probably as rich or richer than San Pedro’s,” Almeida said. “They have three buildings there that date back to the Civil War. I don’t think many places west of the Mississippi can claim that.”