American Trona Corporation Building

American Trona Corporation Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Pacific Avenue, San Pedro, Los Angeles, California
Coordinates
Built	1916
NRHP Reference #	84000785
Added to NRHP	August 30, 1984

American Trona Corporation Building is an industrial building at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California. It was built from 1916-1917 by the American Trona Corporation of California, to process and store salt potash from the company's mining facilities at Searles Lake in the Mojave Desert, near Trona in eastern San Bernardino County, California.

History

Mining

The building originally included crushers, separators and a network of conveyor belts to process the potash. The building has approximately 25,000 square feet (2,300 m²) of interior space on two floors and is said to be one of the largest still existing wood structural spaces in an industrial building on the West Coast. The foundation and interior walls of the first floor were built with reinforced concrete, and the entire upper section is made of wood.

Due to advances in methods for separating potash, the plant was used for that purpose for only a short time, and there is some indication that the facility never went into full production.

Other uses

In 1920, the building was offered for sale at $200,000 to become part of a proposed submarine naval base at the Los Angeles Harbor. The building was converted to use as a saw mill and warehouse during the 1920s and 1930s.

The building became part of the U.S. Army Fort MacArthur in 1942, and has remained under military ownership since that time. The ownership of Fort MacArthur transferred to the U.S. Air Force in 1982.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

See also

• List of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in the Harbor area
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles, California