George Alexander took Phineas Banning in as his business partner. Together, the pair bought the freight business from its original owners and renamed the enterprise Alexander & Banning. When the company began running glamorous stagecoaches in addition to freight wagons, I found myself envying the drivers in Phineas's firm.

Now stagecoach men, and not just mere wagoneers, they traveled over wagon routes which have today become the highways leading to and from southern California. Phineas's coaches and freight wagons delivered cargo and passengers to gold miners on the Kern River, to Yuma Arizona, even to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the Mormon settlers were not eager to do business with outsiders until Phineas persuaded them to do business with him.

Eventually, Phineas arranged for five local business men to invest and put up the monies to purchase the land. Although he did not buy the land himself, Phineas became a wealthy enough man to found an entire new town on it. He named his town "Wilmington" in honor of the town of his birth. The town, I knew, was a better place for a transportation company than San Pedro, since it was six miles closer to Los Angeles. But even then, Phineas was thinking about things of which I had not dreamed. Phineas knew that the future would not arrive in a stagecoach; it would chug into Wilmington on the railroad.

Stranded | We Land in San Pedro | Stagecoach Adventures
Harnessing the Iron Horse | A Bay Bows to His Will
The Fulfillment of Family | A Fair & Agreeable Isle