Longest Wharf in the World

The “Longest Warf in the World”, as shown on this post card,

does not exist today. It was the victim of a power struggle among several parties. In the end, after all the fighting was over, it was slowly dismantled over time.

It was originally conceived by the Southern Pacific Railroad as a means to develop more business for them and for the city of Santa Monica. Los Angeles does not have a natural harbour. In order to create business, Collis Huntington (one of the big four that invested in the Central Pacific Railroad, which worked with the Union Pacific Railroad to build the transcontinental railroad) and John Jones (senator from Nevada and founder of Santa Monica) joined forces to come up with the idea of the wharf. It was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad between 1892 and 1894. The Pier wharf had a double track rail track lines to move cargo and freight on and off the pier quickly. When it opened it became the longest wharf in the world. It was almost a mile long at 4,700 feet.

During its lifetime it served both cargo and passenger trains by diverting shipping business from the nearby San Pedro Bay. A struggle between the newly opened wharf and the port of Los Angeles at San Pedro ended in 1897 when San Pedro was declared the port of choice. Construction of a breakwater in San Pedro started in 1899 and the Los Angeles Harbor Commission was founded in 1907. San Pedro Bay port area was annexed to Los Angeles in 1909. The Santa Monica wharf thus lost much of it traffic to San Pedro. Santa Monica almost became as important as the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro as major shipping port. Political struggle between the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Pacific Railroad put an end to the Santa Monica wharf.

It served as a cargo and passenger port until 1913, and in 1919 removal of the wharf started. The wharf, the 1000 foot tip of the pier, was removed by 1920. The remaining 3,600 feet of pier was used as a run-down fishing pier until 1933, when the remainder of the pier was removed.

While I am showing you the back of the post card here, the name of the publisher is on the front of the card in the left margin. The post card was published by the E. P. Charlton Company.

They existed from 1899 to 1912 in San Francisco, California. Earl Perry Charlton and Seymour Knox opened their first 5 & 10 cent store in Fall River, MA in 1890. Highly successful they had 9 east coast stores when they sold their business out to F. W. Woolworth in 1899. Charlton headed west with his proceeds to open up a new chain of stores. The Lewis & Clark exposition in 1905 provided impedes for him to start publishing postcards. Afterwards he continued to publish and distribute lithographic cards through his 52 chain stores until he merged with Woolworths in 1912. Charlton served there as Vice President.