The last surviving Civil War-era military building in LA, where a woman in a hoop skirt still smells of lavender
1052 N Banning Blvd, Wilmington, CA 90744
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free admission; suggested donation $5 adults, $1 children
Access
Limited Access
Historic wooden structure; limited accessibility on upper floors
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1862 · Union Army Headquarters Southern California 1862–1871 · California Column staging base · Sole surviving Civil War military structure in the Los Angeles area · Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument
The post was established in January 1862 on land donated by harbor developer Phineas Banning and lawyer Benjamin Wilson. Initially called Camp San Pedro, it was renamed Camp Drum in December 1863 to honor Assistant Adjutant General Richard Coulter Drum, who oversaw construction from San Francisco.
At its operational height the post sprawled across 60 acres with 19 buildings, housing roughly 500 soldiers and 300 horses. It served three strategic purposes: suppressing Confederate sympathizers in Southern California (among those arrested were newspaper publisher Henry Hamilton and state assemblyman E.J.C. Kewen), securing the harbor, and staging troops for operations farther east. Colonel James Henry Carleton led 2,300 California Volunteers through Arizona and New Mexico in 1862, securing those territories for the Union against Confederate forces pushing up from Texas.
The post also conducted operations in the Indian Wars, including engagements at Apache Pass and in the Owens Valley. It was decommissioned around 1871 after its military role wound down, and the land was returned to Banning and Wilson.
Of the original 22 buildings, only the junior officers' quarters survived. It sat in various states of use and disuse for over a century before the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum opened there in 1987. The museum is operated by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks and holds Civil War-era artifacts including a Gatling gun, period furnishings, documents, and a detailed scale model of the original post.
Sources
The accounts at Drum Barracks have a longer institutional paper trail than most. The museum's own staff, including longtime director Marge O'Brien, have described witnessing unexplained activity: footsteps and the sound of dragging chains when no one was present, tobacco and pipe-smoke odors appearing in closed rooms, and objects moving or disappearing in the Model Room.
The most consistently reported figure is a woman referred to as Maria, who appears in period hoop skirt attire and is accompanied by a distinctive lavender and violet perfume scent. One account from a city exterminator described encountering a man in Civil War dress in the kitchen asking for water, and asking for someone by that name. A guide reported watching a window blind rise slowly on its own after she had left the room and locked the door.
The Unsolved Mysteries segment that aired October 28, 1992 — narrated by Robert Stack and titled 'Civil War Ghosts' — brought national attention to the building and featured interviews with staff who described seeing apparitions of soldiers. A Most Haunted episode in 2005 also investigated the site.
The Model Room draws the most specific accounts: visitors describe smelling tobacco and perfume there, hearing items being moved, and sensing a watching presence. Whether the hauntings represent soldiers who died near the post, a civilian woman connected to the officers' quarters, or residue from the building's own history is not established — only the consistency of the reports across decades and witnesses.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
All visitors tour with a guide through the officers' quarters, the only surviving original building from the 22-building, 60-acre Union Army post. The museum holds Civil War-era artifacts including a Gatling gun, period furniture, photographs, documents, and a scale model of the original post. Tours run Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and the second and fourth Saturday of each month at 10:30 AM and 12:30 PM.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
San Diego, CA
Villa Montezuma is the 1887 Queen Anne residence built in San Diego's Sherman Heights for pianist, author, and Spiritualist Benjamin Henry Jesse Francis Shepard, later known by the pen name Francis Grierson. The home is owned by the City of San Diego, operated as a museum by the Friends of the Villa Montezuma, and was saved from demolition in the 1960s by Save Our Heritage Organisation.
Tuscaloosa, AL
Gorgas House was built in 1829 as a dining hall for the newly founded University of Alabama. It is the oldest surviving building on the campus. Confederate Brigadier General Josiah Gorgas, who served as the Confederate Army's chief of ordnance during the Civil War, became president of the University of Alabama and lived in the house from 1878 until his death there in 1883.
Creede, CO
Silver was discovered in Creede, Colorado in 1889, and within a year the town had grown from nothing to 10,000 people. It drew some of the frontier era's most notorious figures: Bob Ford (who killed Jesse James in Missouri in 1882) and con man Soapy Smith both operated there. The mines closed in 1985. Local miners subsequently blasted 600 feet of tunnels into the cliff above town to create the Underground Mining Museum, which opened to preserve Creede's silver era history.