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About Harbor City

courtesy of wikipedia

Harbor City was originally part of the Rancho San Pedro, granted by the Spanish Empire in 1784 by King Carlos III to Juan Jose Dominguez. The rancho was divided and sold by Californios during the Spanish and Mexican periods of Alta California. After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, many of the rancho lands were acquired by American immigrants.

Harbor City stands as a testament to the ambitious designs of the Anglo-American creators of the modern metropolis of Los Angeles. By the turn of the century, city leaders had decided that it would be in the best interests of the city if the port and harbor areas were directly annexed. The independent cities of San Pedro (founded in the late 1700s) and Wilmington (founded in 1858 by Phineas Banning) were then independent establishments of what would become the Port of Los Angeles. Following the establishment of San Pedro as the main source for the port over Santa Monica in 1897, Los Angeles city leaders argued that direct control over the port areas would be mutually beneficial by providing San Pedro and Wilmington with larger funding and in turn allowing the city to garner more revenue via the increasing port trade. The two cities were initially reluctant to join; in 1906, frustrated by the indecision of San Pedro and Wilmington leaders, the city of Los Angeles purchased a long and narrow swath of land that connected then-South Los Angeles to San Pedro, naming the two regions Harbor Gateway and Harbor City. City leaders then threatened to build a new port in Harbor City if the recalcitrant towns would not acquiesce to annexation. Both agreed by 1909. In return, the city of Los Angeles elected to keep Harbor City as a land-locked part of the main city, linking the metropolis to its newly won ocean trading centers. To this day, Harbor City remains an amusing irony—it is not a city and contains no harbor (that honor goes to San Pedro, Wilmington, and Long Beach).  Zip codes for Harbor City Locksmith:90710