Photograph of 2nd page of Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine story about Drum Barracks, "When Camels Carried Mail to California," by Basil Heathcote, 1930
Creator
Heathcote, Basil
Contributor
University of California, Los Angeles. -- Library. -- Dept. of Special Collections (repository) Banning, Phineas, -- 1830-1885 (subject)
copyrighted The copyright holder of these items has granted the UC Regents permission to make them publicly available on the web.
Description
Text from nitrate negative sleeve: 1823 - 1824 253R1694 2 negs, 1929. Photo by Adelbert Bartlett, 535 15th Street, Santa Monica, Calif. Drum Barracks, 1862-68, offcers qtrs. U.S. Army, Wilmington (now in Los Angeles at L.A. Harbor) Calif. (see story attached) Includes photograhs of General Phineas Banning and Drum Barracks officers' quarters and jail building Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds. Text reads, in part: Mr. Keaveny, who has made a study of early California history for the past twenty years, has spared no effort to preserve and restore what remains of old Drum Barracks. There are fourteen rooms ... Early in 1860 and through 1861 an army post was maintained in San Pedro ... housed in tents ... Gen. Phineas Banning, whose enterprise and foresight had built the town of Wilmington, offered an adequate tract of land here ... Drum Barracks was there constructed in 1862 and named in honor of the Adjutant-General of the Army, Gen. Drum ... Here was the scene of the first and only government experiment with camels. ... When Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President Pierce, he ordered the purchase of seventy-five camels and dromedaries from Egypt and Arabia to be used to transport munitions and supplies ... The camels ... were finally sold to the highest bidders at Drum Barracks at the close of the Civil War. ...
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
