USA > California > California of the South: Being a Complete Guide Book to Southern California > Part 12
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" It would be hard to find anywhere a better-developed and more wholesome-looking body of children than you may see in the public schools of Pasadena.
"Thus we may conclude that the vital record of the place, up to the present time, has been very exceptionally good. Henceforth
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PASADENA.'
the population will contain a large number of persons who have been sent thither as a forlorn hope-a last resort-and mortality from chest-diseases may be very large. It is with a melancholy and embittered sense that the local medical men recognize that so many are thoughtlessly or cruelly sent only to die among strangers and far from all the resources of home.
" Having thus considered the physical advantages of Pasadena, it remains to notice the social and municipal privileges and attrac- tions which figure so largely in the choice of a residence or tempo- rary abode.
"The boundless faith and enterprise of the citizens in this direc- tion have secured remarkable results. More than one hundred thou- sand dollars have been raised within the past year for church con- struction. There are six or more churches already, and four more are under contract. One of them is, and two more will be, such as would be considered an ornament to any Eastern town or city.
" A system of well-equipped schools with good buildings culmi- nates in a high school, for which an ample and elegant building is completed.
" There are three banks, overflowing with money, which during the last six months has resulted from real-estate transactions exceed- ing one million dollars.
"Four street-railways in operation, and as many more under- taken or projected, radiate from the center of the town to all points of the compass. The great transcontinental systems of the Atchi- son, Topeka, and Santa Fe, the Atlantic and Pacific, and the Southern Pacific enter the town, and are soon to build, on the principal street, large and elegant stations, to accommodate the great and increasing passenger traffic.
"There are miles of well-constructed concrete sidewalks, and they are being laid in all directions.
" There is a well-organized and rapidly-increasing public library. A Young Men's Christian Association building and a theater will soon combine in the education of the young folk.
"The shops and markets are adequate to the present, and are ex- panding to meet future demands.
"Two hotels, with accommodations equal to those of our best watering-places, are in operation, and in the present season have been obliged to refuse almost as many guests as they admitted. .
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There is an insufficient number of private boarding-houses with a tariff of from ten to twenty dollars per week. There are furnished lodgings of all qualities, tolerable and intolerable restaurants, where one may be fed or famished, at discriminate prices.
" The social life of the place is peculiar. The community is com- posed of former residents of every State in the Union, and most of the nations of the globe. The Mexican type of Indian, the Cli- nese coolie, and the Carolina type of Negro furnish the lower ranks of labor, and are much more decent and civil than the similar class in Eastern cities. Mechanics, artisans, and gardeners are mostly Americans, or Germans of very good class. Proprietors and agents, etc., are largely recruited from the Northwestern States, Iowa tak- ing the lead.
"There are many people from the older States whose education, property, and taste have their fair influence in forming society. Cleveland, Chicago, and Minneapolis are well represented; and there is a faint and vanishing savor of the older Californian life.
" Altogether it is a spirited and highly cosmopolitan community; how conservative it is appears from the fact that there is, I believe, but one saloon where liquors are sold by the dram ; and how æsthet- ic-from the general cultivation and use of flowers, and the very pleasing and frequent musical and dramatic entertainments.
"Nowhere else in California does a more wide and fertile plain invite man's cultivation ; nowhere else does the pulse of travel and traffic beat more visible and constant; nowhere else is a serener sky bent above a fairer landscape; margined and sentineled on one side by the green and much-carved hills and snow-capped mountains, and on the other by the far-shining sea."
In the southern part of Pasadena is the great Raymond Hotel that entertained thirty-five thousand guests during the fall, winter, and spring of 1886-'87. It has a station of its own called Raymond. The hotel is located on a very commanding site, and the illustration on the opposite page `gives an idea of the view from its veranda. Two miles nearer Los Angeles than Pasadena is-
SOUTH PASADENA, a rapidly-growing village, with nu- merous beautiful homes, orange-groves, etc.
View of Sierra Madre Mountains and Pasadena, from Raymond Hotel.
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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Four miles farther from Los Angeles than Pasadena, on the same railroad, is-
LAMANDA PARK, a new town with stores and other vil- lage accessories. This is the nearest station to the Sierra Madre Villa, a noted hotel for tourists. Kinneyloa, the ranch of the Hon. Abbott Kinney, is near this point. It contains one of the largest orange-orchards in California. An illustration on page 91 gives a view of the place, with a grove of live-oaks in the foreground.
Coming from Los Angeles, the first village is-
SAN GABRIEL, a delightful old town on the Southern Pacific Railroad. One mile from this town is the noted Sunny Slope Vineyard, recently sold to an English com- pany for one million dollars.
Here is the San Gabriel Mission, established by Padre .Junipero in 1771. The building is still in good condition, and is a point of universal interest. San Gabriel is nine miles from Los Angeles, and has long been noted for its salubrious climate and aged people. In 1878 Señora Eula- lia Perez de Guilen died here, aged one hundred and forty- three years, she having been born in Lower California in 1735 .* September 5, 1854, Maria Francisca Villabobas de Zavia died, aged one hundred and twelve years. A mile from San Gabriel is the beautiful village of-
ALHAMBRA .- Here is an elegant hotel, bank, a school- house, several churches, and orchards of almost every va- riety of fruits-apricots, nectarines, apples, pears, plums, guavas, oranges, lemons, and limes. All reach their great- est possibilities in this vicinity. Near Alhambra is the winery and distilleries of the San Gabriel Wine Company, the largest building of the kind in the world.
SIERRA MADRE is the name of a village near the eastern edge of this township. It is not on any railroad, but the
* The age of Señora de Guilen has been established beyond doubt.
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SIERRA MADRE.
nearest station is Santa Anita, on the California Central, sixteen miles from Los Angeles. Sierra Madre is the resi- dence of a large number of very wealthy, aristocratic, highly-educated families who have elegant mountain-villas, some of which are on such a large scale that one is carried back in thought to the castles of Europe. The climate here is very healthful, and all of this foot-hill region is noted as a resort for invalids.
Here, again, the invalid should remember that the best way to gain health is to get a cottage, live an independent life, avoiding contact with other invalids.
WILSON'S PEAK .- Away up in the mountains back of Pasadena is Wilson's Peak, where an observatory is to be established through the generosity of Hon. E. F. Spence, ex-mayor of the city of Los Angeles. A company has also been organized to build a railroad to the top of this peak- six thousand feet above sea-level. A very large sanitarium will also be erected here.
El Monte, Azusa, and San José Townships.
These three large townships lie side by side south of Soledad Township, bordered on the west by San Gabriel Township, and on the east by San Bernardino County. This one tier of townships, resting here together and forming about one-eighteenth part of Los Angeles County, contains almost everything that mortal man could desire or eye could wish to see.
Traversed by railroads, rivers, and mountains ; with numerous villas, ornamented with the palm, the heliotrope, and the rose ; surrounded by orchards and vineyards of lux- uriant growth, and widely diverse products ; where almost every home has an altitude of from one to four thousand feet ; with few fogs or frosts ; with the perpetual view of the valleys dotted with towns, the ocean flecked with
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Residence of N. C. Carter, Esq., Sierra Madre.
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EL MONTE .- PUENTE.
white sails, and the purple-tinted mountains of the islands. A two hours' tramp to the north will lead to mountain dells, waterfalls, ferns, and wild-flowers, or an half-hour's ride on the cars will leave one in the center of a great me- tropolis. Here God and man have thus, in one superlative effort, brought together all these features. Is it a wonder that people of wealth and culture are coming in great num- bers to secure homes ?
The Southern Pacific Railroad traverses the southern portion of these townships, and has in them the following stations : Savanna, El Monte, Puente, Spadra, and Pomona.
SAVANNA is an unimportant station in a wealthy agricult- ural region.
EL MONTE is the center of a territory very much like that of Downey. Here, again, like Downey, we find corn, hogs, and cattle predominating, and here, again, also, we find, as in the vicinity of Downey, the great bulk of the population has come from the Southern States.
Following the San Gabriel River from Downey to El Monte, this is the chief line of products. Where hogs and corn are leading sources of wealth you can rest assured there is no health-resort. This small section around El Monte is totally different from nineteen twentieths of the lands in these townships. The altitudes, as can be seen by the tables, is only two hundred and eighty-six feet, and the land is moist. For the farmer who wishes to raise hogs, deciduous fruits, and grain, there are great inducements, . but the health-seeker, or the person who desires to grow citrus fruits or raisin-grapes, should avoid this small strip of country.
PUENTE is fifty feet higher than El Monte, and twenty miles east of Los Angeles. It is the center of the Puente oil-district, and is on this account a point of interest. There is here a large hotel. A fuller report of the oil-wells here can be found in the chapter on Petroleum.
Farm Scene in Vernon.
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POMONA.
SPADRA is a station ten miles east of Puente, situated at an altitude of seven hundred and five feet.
POMONA .- Pomona is three miles farther east. In 1875, & land company, in which L. M. Holt, Milton Thomas, and T. A. Garey, of Los Angeles, were the leading spirits, purchased a great body of rolling land, upon which they laid out a town they named Pomona. On Washington's birthday, 1876, there was an excursion from Los Angeles to the embryo town, to attend an auction sale of lots.
Many went who were not interested in lots, but who spent the day joyfully wandering over the plains, through the rich, green carpet of fern-like alfileria-a wild grass that grows profusely throughout Southern California-and furnishes food for all varieties of stock, not only in the winter and spring, when it is green, but also in midsummer when, without any harvesting, it becomes sun-cured, and is an answer to the question often asked, " How can stock keep so fat where there is no green grass ?"
But, on this February day, the alfileria had on its delicate bluish-pink blossom, which gave the green carpet a lighter tint, that was here and there again relieved by bright or- ange rugs, varying in size from a few yards square to acres in breadth. What were these brilliant rugs ?
On closer look they proved to be solid beds of brilliant poppies, that at this time of the year reach perfection. Such beautiful bouquets as were gathered on that bright February day ! Happy was every child with its hands full. There were lavender-colored lilies, bright-red cardinal-flow- ers, pretty crucifers, vast bunches of violets, cream-colored bell-flowers, and the delicately-shaded tulip. Too bad to change God's flower-garden into a busy, sordid town !
Eleven Februaries have come and gone since that auc- tion sale, and wonderful changes have come to pass. Here on this plain is now a city of four thousand in- habitants, with banks, school-houses, and churches ; and
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now a great Congregational college is being established here that will doubtless make Pomona an intellectual center. There is no available record of the number of thousands of acres of apricots and other fruits around this town. The surrounding country is a great orchard, and Flora has stepped aside to make place for Pomona.
The town of Pomona has an elevation of eight hun- dred and sixty-seven feet, and in the immediate vicinity can be found any altitude between this and fifteen hundred feet. The citizens have been so busily engaged in their commercial pursuits that they have taken little thought of the advantageous location of their town for a health-resort, but it is nevertheless a desirable point for persons with pul- monary troubles.
The air is dry and pure. The daily breeze that comes in from the ocean has, in its journey of fifty miles, lost its moisture, but it still serves the purpose of equalizing the temperature and keeping midsummer cool and midwinter warm. Pomona is blessed with an abundant water-supply. There are sixty-five artesian wells, with an average flow each of two hundred thousand gallons in twenty-four hours, in this vicinity, and a large body of water is brought down from the snow-covered sides of Old Baldy, through a rift in its side called San Antonio Cañon.
There are brick-yards, pipe- works, wineries, feed-mills, mattress-factories, fruit-canneries, and numerous other in- dustries. There are several nurseries, one firm having, in 1887 sold over thirty thousand orange-trees.
The Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Con- gregationalists, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Universal- ists, Catholics, German Lutherans, and the Band of Holiness, all have churches here. There are lodges of Masons, Odd-Fellows, Ancient Order of United Work- men, Knights of Pythias, a post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and a Young Men's Christian Association.
Santa Anita Ranch.
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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
There are two newspapers-the "Times-Courier" and the " Progress."
THE SANTA ANITA RANCH .- From two to five miles north of and parallel to the Southern Pacific Railroad is the California Central Railroad, whose track is laid along the base of the mountains. This is a new road, having been recently completed from Los Angeles to San Bernar- dino. The line of this road has lately been the scene of a wonderful growth. Promising, ambitious, wide-awake towns have sprung up as if by magic.
The traveler will, after half an hour's ride on this road, have passed by the Raymond Hotel, through the city of Pasadena, and reached Santa Anita, the first station in El Monte Township. This is the nearest station to the village of Sierra Madre, and it is also the nearest to the celebrated Santa Anita Ranch, the home of E. J. Baldwin, better known as "Lucky" Baldwin. Here, at Mr. Bald- win's home, fourteen miles from Los Angeles, are many acres of orange - groves, hundreds of acres of vineyard, beautiful lawns, an artificial lake and fountains, and a stable of probably the most noted horses in the United States.
This was the home of the famous mare Mollie McCar- thy, which died three years ago, and left three colts that present marks of future greatness. Here is Lucky B., the seven-year old runner. It is rarely that a runner remains successfully on the turf at this age. Here is also to be seen Volante, the best five-year old running-horse in America, and the noted stallions Grimstead and Rutherford, the sires of almost all of Mr. Baldwin's thoroughbreds. Be- sides these, there are eighty other blooded horses in the stables, many of them with national reputations. This is the place where the noted wines and brandies that bear the Baldwin brand are made.
Mr. Baldwin farms on a very extensive scale, and pro -.
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SANTA ANITA.
duces almost everything in the way of grain, fruit, and stock. He has in this vicinity the following ranches :
Santa Anita Ranch 10,000 acres.
La Puente Ranch. 19,000
San Francisquito Ranch.
6,000
66
Felipe Lugo Ranch.
3,000
Portero Grande
5,000
Merced.
3,000
Portero Chico.
100
66
A total of 46,100 acres here, while west of Los Angeles is the Cienega Ranch of four thousand acres, carried on as a model dairy. Mr. Bald- win has a great deal of the best business property in the city of Los Angeles, and four thousand acres of land in other parts of Los Angeles County. Much of his proper- ty is now being subdivided and sold in small farms to actual settlers.
Every visitor to Los Angeles should take what is known as the Grand Round, which is a day's drive from Los An- geles. This trip includes the following places : The Ray- mond Hotel, from the verandas of which there is a good view of mountains, valleys, and ocean ; Pasadena ; the Si- erra Madre Villa, where a lunch will be relished ; Mr. Bald- win's Santa Anita Ranch ; Sunny-Slope winery and distil- lery ; San Gabriel Mission, where the visitor is welcome to enter ; and then, past the winery of the San Gabriel Wine Company, to Los Angeles. The tourist should have a driver or a guide, and he should see that the driver takes him to these places in the order in which they are here noted.
Two miles east of Santa Anita is Arcadia, a new town that has recently been plotted and sold by Mr. Unruh. It is in the center of Mr .. Baldwin's possessions, and is the scene of great activity. The land around the town is being sold in small fruit-farms, and, as elsewhere in
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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Southern California, the great ranch will soon give way to the small farm. May God speed the day !
Although this town is but a few months old, there are already numerous creditable buildings completed, and many in course of construction. It is here that Mr. Bald- win will erect his Southern California hotel, which is to surpass anything yet built in the State.
MONROVIA is two miles east of Arcadia, and is the won- der of this coast.
Its history reads like a romance. Its founder, W. N. Monroe, a man whom it is a pleasure to know, bought a large tract of land in 1885 of Mr. E. J. Baldwin. Realiz- ing the advantages of the location, he decided to found a town here, and in May, 1886, the town-site was laid out in lots. Sixteen months have passed since then, and now we find a beautiful prosperous town, with a Methodist Episco- pal and Baptist Church, a school-house that cost fifteen thousand dollars, two lines of street-cars, large hotels under excellent management, two banks with large capital, large business blocks, in which merchants are doing a thriving business, and beautiful homes surrounded by semi-tropical plants and productive orchards.
Monrovia is especially commended as a health-resort. It is nineteen miles from Los Angeles, and lies close to the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains. It has an elevation of about twelve hundred feet, but here, as elsewhere, the victim of lung-disease will do best if he has his own cot- tage, flower-garden, and carriage, so that he may lead a life independent of hotels, and completely separated from other invalids. There are at least a dozen trains daily be- tween Monrovia and Los Angeles.
Every visitor to this town should find Mr. Monroe, the founder of the town, whose friends familiarly call him " Mayor," and who will be recognized by the color of his hair and the genial twinkle of his eyes. Mayor Monroe was
Residence of W. N. Monroe, Esq., Monrovia.
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recently a candidate for county treasurer before a county convention, and, in his speech announcing himself, said : "The only thing that induces me to be a candidate is that I understand the party needs on their ticket a red-headed man to catch the colored vote."
Mr. C. F. Holder, the well-known writer, in a letter to the "Los Angeles Times," says :
"Monrovia has been fortunate in the fact that a large number of wealthy men have settled in the place, and are doing their utmost to render it a beautiful resort. Among these are W. N. Monroe, the founder of the town, whose fine residence is a sample of what can be done in a year or so. It looks like a place half a century old, yet the jack- rabbit held possession not long ago. Great groups of ba- nanas wave their graceful leaves, roses, pampas-grass, and a wealth of flowers and fruit tend to make this place a model Southern California home. One of the main avenues is about a mile long, and planted on both sides closely with these graceful trees, which, owing to the mildness of the climate here, bear well."
It is said that a Texan selected a home in Monrovia, and told Mr. Monroe he would be back in an hour with the money. When he returned, another man had bought the place and paid for it. The next day the Texan came back, and asked the Mayor what he would take for anoth- er property he had chosen. As soon as a price was agreed upon, the Texan whipped out a six-shooter, and, leveling it on Mr. Monroe, ordered him not to exchange words with another person until the papers were signed and trans- ferred.
This anecdote slightly exaggerates the great desire of people to get homes in this vicinity. J. I. Case (owner of "J. I. C."), of Wisconsin, the Messrs. Studebaker, of South Bend, Indiana, and many other wealthy people have beau- tiful winter homes here.
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MONROVIA.
"Monrovia sits like a beautiful queen, With scepter of flowers in a kingdom of green ; Her orange-groves bring her their tribute of gold, While gardens and vineyards rich treasures unfold.
"Her sweet, balmy breath gives the feeble new life, Her bright, sunny smile wooes them on to new strife; She charms and refreshes with pure, gushing fountains, That come with their coolness from snowy-capped mountains."
San Antonio Cañon.
Duarte, Azusa, Glendora, La Verne, San Dimas, Lords- burg, North Pomona, and Claremont are all prosperous towns along the California Central Railroad. They are all in the midst of good land for citrus and deciduous fruits, and are all good localities for the average case of incipient phthisis. The mountains just back of all these places are sources of never-ending interest. Near Sierra Madre are the Win- ston gold-mines that an English company have recently purchased. These numerous canons, leading up to mount- ain-peaks along this ridge, and any of these towns along the California Central, are good places to start from for a mountain-climb after ferns, flowers, or game.
The most noted of these is San Antonio Canon, and the following extracts, from a description in the "Overland," for August, 1887, of "Our Camp in the Canon," by Belle J. Bidwell, graphically tells how the writer and another lady, who is called "the Invalid," spent ten weeks camping here, four thousand feet above the level of the sea :
". . . . This canon of San Antonio is a great cleft in the Sierra Madre Range. We are told that seventeen years ago it was 'as pretty a canon as you'd find anywhere. A man could gallop his horse clear up to the saw-mill.' Some mighty storm, perhaps a cloud-burst, in the mountains, aided in its work of destruction by the felling of trees for the mill, has swept down the canon, carrying
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in its flood rocks and trees from the mountain-sides, making for itself a path, and leaving huge bowlders and immense tree-trunks in its course.
"The saw-mill is in ruins now-whether picturesque or not we did not learn, for it is nearly at the head of the canon, too far away for a visit. The river is now but a small creek, probably from fif- teen to twenty feet wide most of the way. It winds its way here and there, and has to be forded nine times by all travelers coming up the canon with teams. It is by no means a quiet stream; its voice is loud enough to drown human voices near its banks, and, when one wakes in the night, the roar seems like that of a storm of wind and rain. Great alders, willows, and live-oaks grow beside it, apparently fighting for a foot-hold in the rocks, and liable at any time during the winter-rains to be torn from their places and laid prostrate across the water.
"Our camp was very near the end of the wagon-road, five miles from the mouth of the canon, where the high hills draw so near together that we seemed to be quite shut in by them, and the morn- ing sun did not look down on us until two hours or more after he had shown himself to the dwellers on the plains. Then he left us before five o'clock in the afternoon; but his light lingered long on the peaks, and it was one of the Invalid's pleasures to lie in the hammock and watch the sunset glow on a certain topmost ledge of reddish rock, which shone out long after all else was dark. . . .
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