USA > California > Los Angeles County > Pasadena > History of Pasadena, comprising an account of the native Indian, the early Spanish, the Mexican, the American, the colony, and the incorporated city, occupancies of the Rancho San Pasqual, and its adjacent mountains, canyons, waterfalls and other objects of interest: being a complete and comprehensive histo-cyclopedia of all matters pertaining to this region > Part 64
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80
February 12, 1890, at the laying of the corner stone for Whittier Reform School, with 50 men.
526
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
March 12, 1890, at Cross railway celebration, Pasadena, with 54 men.
May 30, 1890, at Memorial Day parade as escort to the G. A. R. in both Pasadena and Los Angeles, with 48 men.
July 4, 1890, at both Pasadena and Los Angeles, with 46 men.
September 9, 1890, at .Admission Day celebration, Pasadena, with 53 men.
April 22, 1891, as escort to President Harrison, in Los Angeles, with 35 men.
July 4, 1891, in Los Angeles, with 35 men.
July 4, 1892, in Pasadena, with 45 men.
October 21, 1892, at Columbian celebration in Pasadena, with 42 men.
At the company's fifth anniversary only four of its original members had been on the roll continuously from the first-to-wit: Ed. C. Clapp, C. H. Cole, Frank L. Heiss, and J. G. Rossiter. Two others, Collingwood and Willis, had been out awhile, then returned.
PICKWICK CLUB .- This was designed for a social, literary, dramatic, and other pastime assemblage of a select circle, its original projectors being J. M. Shawhan, W. L. Vail, W. J. Craig, F. J. Polley, B. W. Bates, C. W. Bell, and others. The first meetings were held in the "kitchen" room connected with the three halls in Williams Hall block. But the club was finally organized in the old Central School building, on Raymond Avenue, in 1887, with about 100 first members. Its first officers were : Byron W. Bates, president (he was then cashier of the S. G. V. Bank); J. M. Shaw- han, secretary and treasurer. When the south half of Hotel Green was first built (then called the "Webster"), a suite of rooms were specially planned there for this club, including a large dance hall and assembly room, with stage and dramatic fixtures, -all fitted and furnished in most elegant style-a regular society "boom," in keeping with the real estate boom. · The club had its full share of ups and downs, ins and outs, trials and tribulations, but still continues to exist, the officers in 1895 being : C. B. Thomas, president ; Hon. C. M. Simpson, vice-president ; L. J. Huff, secre- tary and treasurer. This club once entertained a son of Charles Dickens, the great English novelist, from whose " Pickwick Papers" the club took its name. They also entertained Thomas Nast, the famous cartoon artist of Harper's Weekly. These were, perhaps, the most notable historic incidents in the club's record thus far.
PASADENA ATHLETIC CLUB, was organized in August, 1890, as an offshoot from the Pickwick Club, its chief promoters being H. R. Hertel, F. Martin Summers, C. W. Bell, F. J. Polley, and a few others. Mr. Sum- mers was the first president ; and at the end of his first term [he was re- elected] he reported the receipts as nearly $1,000-all debts and expenses of the club paid-and a balance of $65 in the treasury. The club had leased and fitted up a gymnasium and social rooms in the old Central school build- ing on Raymond Avenue. Then in November, 1891, they leased ground
527
DIVISION SEVEN -SOCIETARY.
between Fair Oaks and Raymond Avenues below Vineyard street, had an oval one-sixth of a mile track graded, tiers of seats erected, etc., to exhibit sporting events. And on December 24 following, they gave a great Field Day of athletic sports for which 48 entries were enrolled for the different events ; and the following gentlemen served, according to printed program, as officers of the day : Starter, H. R. Hertel ; referee, F. Martin Summers; clerk of the course, C. W. Bell ; field judges, B. O. Kendall, H. E. Pratt and P. W. B. Walker ; timers, C. S. Martin, J. W. Wood and H. H. Rose ; finish judges, Cal. Hartwell, C. L. Miller and F. J. Polley ; official scorer, J. G. Rossiter ; official announcer, Geo. Frost ; marshal, Geo. Greeley. On August 23, 1893, occurred the great celebration on the completion of the Electric railroad up Echo mountain, and known as " Prof. Lowe Day," this club gave a series of athletic events as part of the day's festivities.
In 1894 Thomas Banbury bought the old school building and moved it away. The club found no other quarters to suit their case ; and now, in 1895, it is in a state of languishing desuetude.
CROWN CITY CYCLE CLUB .- Meetings to talk the matter over were held at Braley's Bicycle Emporium rooms on Raymond Avenue; and the club was organized there on July 25, 1894, with the following roll of members : Chas. C. Glass, E. W. Flint ; E. R. Braley, J. S. Evans, S. E. Downey, R. V. Dey, W. H. Stewart, A. F. Canfield, A. L. Ryder, R. H. Hargreaves, L. Freeman, E. D. G. Campbell, R. H. Gaylord, C. A. John- ston, Ed. Gamble, W. B. Willis, A. G. Stevens, W. T. Stevens, W. Seamons, F. H. Smith, N. White, Harry Myers, C. H. Hillard, Wm. Crowell, Geo. Dell, Thomas Ralphs. The first officers were : Glass, president ; Braley, vice-president ; Flint, secretary ; Gaylord, treasurer. The club colors are orange and green. This club's by-laws declare that no intoxicating liquors nor gambling of any sort shall be allowed in the club rooms; and no runs shall be made by or in the name of the club on Sundays. There were 45 members in March, 1895. C. Hewitt, secretary. In July they leased 12 acres of land on Lincoln Avenue and Hammond street, and made a one- third mile cycling track there ; and at same time the Star said : " Pasadena has fourteen bicycle dealers, representing twenty-two different wheels."
528
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
DIVISION EIGHT-SCIENCE. CHAPTER XXVIII.
PREHISTORIC MAN IN PASADENA .- The Glacial Period of Geology .- The ancient town- site on Reservoir Hill .- Human relics as ancient as those of Table Mountain in Calaveras county .- Descriptive list of stone implements found .- Prof. Holder's letter.
PREHISTORIC MAN IN PASADENA.
In order that the reader who is not specially versed in geology may have some fair idea of the real force and import of the facts which show that man dwelt in Pasadenaland many thousands of years ago, I must first present extracts from the latest and highest scientific authority on man's ex- istence on the Pacific coast prior to or during the era known in geology as the Glacial period, which was the closing or breaking-up time of the Ter- tiary age. [See Geological Chart, Chapter 29.] The International Scien- tific Series, published by D. Appleton & Co. of New York, is reckoned as first-rank authority in the scientific world. No. 69 of this series treated of "MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD," was published in 1892, and was writ- ten by Geo. Frederick Wright, D. D., LL. D., F. G. S. A., professor in Oberlin Theological Seminary; Asst. on U. S. Geological Survey ; author of "The Ice Age in North America," etc., etc., etc. He is therefore perfectly competent to give us the latest results of scientific research in his chosen field. And from his work on "Man," etc., published in 1892, I quote :
" Most interesting evidence concerning the antiquity of man in Amer- ica, and his relation to the Glacial period, has come from the Pacific coast. * * These reports did not attract much scientific attention until they came to relate to the gravel deposits found deeply buried beneath a flow of lava locally known as the Sonora or Tuolumne Table Mountain. This lava issued from a vent near the summit of the mountain range, and flowed down the valley of the Stanislaus river for a distance of fifty or sixty miles, burying everything in the valley beneath it, and compelling the river to seek another channel. * * It was under this mountain of lava that the numerous implements and remains of man occurred which were re- ported to Prof. J. D. Whitney when he was conducting the geological sur- X x vey of California, between 1860 and 1870. Interest reached a still higher pitch when, in 1866, an entire human skull, with some other human bones was reported to have been discovered under this same lava deposit, a few miles from Sonora, at Altaville, in Calaveras county, and hence known as the 'Calaveras skull.' * * * * The forms of animal and vegetable life with which the remains of man under Table Mountain are associated are indeed to a considerable extent species now extinct in California, and some of them no longer exist anywhere in the world. *
* * The con- nection of these lava-flows on the Pacific coast with the Glacial period is un- questionably close. For some reason which we do not fully understand, the vast accumulation of ice in North America during the Glacial period is cor- related with enormous eruptions of lava west of the Rocky Mountains, and,
529
DIVISION EIGHT -SCIENCE.
in connection with these events, there took place on the Pacific coast an al- most entire change in the plants and animals occupying the region."*
The above extracts are taken from pages 294 to 301, omitting every- thing but what seemed to have some bearing on our Pasadena case. For account of glacial marks on granite rocks at Devil's Gate, and other evi- dences of glacier work hereabouts, see chapter 29, on Geology.
OUR ANCIENT TOWNSITE.
The San Gabriel Orange Grove Association was organized December 23, 1873. One of their first necessities was to secure a water supply both for domestic use and for irrigation purposes. Their highest point of land was at the north end of the street they had laid out as Orange Grove Avenue, between it and the brow of the great Arroyo Seco chasm, and here they de- cided to build a colony reservoir. The site had long been used for a sheep corral, because of the land sloping away in every direction and thus giving the shepherds and their dogs an advantage in detecting the approach by day or night of bears, coyotes, mountain lions, foxes, wild cats, or other animals that prey upon sheep or lambs ; and also because of the bountiful springs at the foot of the great bluff, where the pumping works are now located. The ground was covered several inches deep with sheep manure, which was scraped off and hauled away to fertilize young trees or growing crops. This left ex- posed the original unbroken surface of the ground which had never before felt the upturning stroke of plow or pick. This top was composed of moun- tain-debris soil just like the surface at lower points all around. The exca- vation was commenced, with no thought of anything unusual in the situ- ation. However, when the work had progressed to a depth of about four feet below that unbroken surface the plows and picks began to turn up specimens of stones that had been wrought and fashioned by man for his own special uses. These relics were so abundant that they attracted a good deal of interest and curiosity at the time, and many persons carried away · specimens to keep as curios. As nearly as I can learn, over a hundred specimens were carried away at that time, and quite as many more have been taken since. Yet in all this time, being now over twenty years, it has been regarded as simply an old Indian village site, such as are found in many places all over California, New Mexico, Arizona, etc .; and that the stone implements found here had no greater historic interest or significance than those found in hundreds of other places. But a very different and more far-reaching view of the matter was first publicly announced by Dr. Reid at a meeting of the Pasadena Fortnightly Club, February 27, 1894, Archæology and Geology being the topics of the evening, under auspices of
* See Geology of Cal., Vol. 1-J. D. Whitney, state geologist (published by the state. Printed at Philadelphia - 1865), pages 250 to 253. The fossils were experted by such eminent authorities as Profs. S. Newberry and Joseph Leidy.
34
530
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
the Science Section of the Club - Prof. A. J. McClatchie of Throop Insti- tute, chairman of the section.
PRIME ELEMENTS OF THE ANCIENT TOWNSITE PROBLEM.
This site was on the highest point or body of land anywhere in the I. vicinity. The land sloped from it in every direction.
2. The surface was composed of materials conveyed down from the mountains and canyons, just the same as the surface soil for miles around.
3. The surface had never before been plowed or dug up or filled in by man ; it was just as nature had originally piled it there.
4. The stone-age relics were found mostly about four feet below the natural surface of the ground, or varying from three and one-half to five feet. The following witnesses to this fact are still living : A. O. Bristol, John W. Wilson, Henry G. Bennett, J. H. Baker, Chas. H. Watts, Col. J. Banbury, Hon. P. M. Green, Thomas Croft, W. T. Clapp, B. S. Eaton.
5. No fragments of pottery were found. These pre-Pasadenians had not yet acquired the art of making pottery.
6. No worked flint was found. They had not yet acquired the art of working flint, or using arrow heads or spear heads.
7. No grooved stone axes or hammers were found. These people had not yet discovered that method of attaching a stone weapon or tool to a wooden handle.
8. No specimens have been found with dish-depth sufficient to warrant their being called "mortars." These people had not yet reached that degree of stone.working skill. No real "pestles" were found -only "mealing stones."
9. No indications were found that they knew the use of fire : no bits of charcoal or burnt wood; no burnt clay or sand ; no stones that showed the action of fire upon them-all of which are usually found at any ancient townsite within the historic period.
IO. The specimens found are true paleoliths, or early stone-age relics.
II. How came they there, and when?
I now address myself to solving this deep and interesting problem.
The first four points noted above really belong together, as part of one general and controlling fact, which is, that the relics were buried four or more feet deep by natural causes, even though they were on the highest point of land in the vicinity. They must have been originally covered much deeper, for the hill had been subject to the natural washing down by rains for centuries, or ever since it was segregated from the west hills by the commencement of the present arroyo gulf. If they had lain anywhere on a slope, having higher land connected even in one direction, the washing down of soil over them would have been a commonplace affair; but the conditions in this case are so different as to have required some great and unusual turmoil of nature to produce them. And we must appeal to geology for the explanation.
The contour of the land, and the general conditions of bed-rock at cer-
531
DIVISION EIGHT-SCIENCE.
tain points, and transported deposits still in place hereabouts, besides the evidences of ancient deposits again washed away and leaving cobblestone walls of great height, all conspire to show that at the time our ancient townsite was occupied, the Linda Vista hills did not terminate with " Jumbo Knob " as they do now, but extended across the arroyo to Reservoir hill, that being its eastern end, and no great arroyo gulf there at all. The Linda Vista lands and the corresponding body of level land on the east side were then continuous clear across and formed the bottom of a terrace lake, with our stone-age village at its lower end ; and its overflow waters swept out over and down the floodplain between the ridges of Orange Grove Avenue and Marengo Avenue, or at an earlier period, beyond Marengo Avenue south- eastward,. the land being higher than now all across from reservoir hill to Summit Avenue. At Devil's Gate there was another barrier ledge, the Verdugo hills extending across probably as far east as Monks Hill, and thus making another terrace lake in the Arroyo Seco and La Canyada above this great natural dam. The line of bluffs or barrier ledge from Columbia Hill eastward, taking in Grace Hill, Raymond Hill, Oak Knoll, etc., held another terrace lake where the lower part of Pasadena city is now situated. And the Lincoln Park Hills which now terminate with Gibraltar butte, where the Santa Fe R. R. crosses the Arroyo, was then joined continuously with the hills extending westward below Highland Park, thus making another great lake where South Pasadena and Garvanza are now located .* This was prior to or during the glacial epoch of geology, or the great ice age of North America, which did not extend in its full rigor as far south as Pasa- dena, but yet the climatic conditions produced by it in the Sierra Nevada mountains and north and eastward therefrom did powerfully affect this region ; and the four terrace lakes then existing within the bounds of Pasa- denaland were destroyed by the violent meteorological disturbances connected with the closing of the ice age. These disturbances were also especially connected with the great lava flow which during that period covered the whole northern part of Californiaf and large parts of Nevada, Oregon and Idaho with the molten products of intense and long continued volcanic eruptions. And now, it will be necessary to again quote some passages from our emi- nent scientific authority, Prof. Wright, and bring our pre-Pasadenians into nearer relation with contemporary events at points farther north. He is both a far-traveled explorer and a learned scientist. His great work on "The Ice Age of North America " was published in 1889. But in April,
*The South Pasadena plain and the Garvanza plain were continuous clear across, being the level bottom of the lake; and the great Arroyo gap, with its cobblestone walls or bluff- on each side, is a valley of erosion, washed ont since the lake waters found an outlet through the hills directly south.
+" The extent of the outflows of lava west of the Rocky Mountains is almost bevond comprehension. Literally, hundreds of thousands of square miles have been covered by them to a depth in many places of thousands of feet "- Man and the Glacial Period. p. 321, International Scientific Series No. 69 1892. "In the Snake River Valley. Idaho, there are not far from twelve thousand square iniles of territory covered with a continuous stratum of basaltic lava, extending nearly across the entire diameter of the State from east to west."-Ib. p. 295.
532
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
1891, he contributed to the Atlantic Monthly an able article on "Prehistoric Man on the Pacific Coast;" and from this I quote the following pertinent passages :
"The changes which have taken place since man became an inhabitant upon the Pacific coast appear enormous" and "are referred for their origin to the climatic conditions accompanying the great ice age of North America." * * "The ice age was one of great precipitation all over North America, in which the rainfall and snowfall were far larger than at the present time, and in which evaporation was far less than now."
" At last there came upon the inhabitants of that region, both man and beast, the added disturbances of the vast volcanic eruptions which have covered so much of the surface with indestructible basalt ; though we are not compelled to suppose in California any great direct destruction of plants and animals by these volcanic outbursts. The extinction of species was due rather to the general disturbances of the conditions of life brought about by this new element in the problem. * * There can be no question that these enormous eruptions of basalt are correlated with the equally surprising facts connected with the glacial period, and, as we have seen, these two periods were doubtless closely contemporaneous in California."
"The region from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast belongs to the later geological eras, and has been subject to comparatively later eleva- tion. The Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains doubtless mark lines of present weakness in the earth's crust. It is by elevations along such lines of weakness that the gradually contracting sphere of the earth gets relief. Now, during the glacial period an area in North America of about 4,000,000 square miles, extending northward from a line connecting New York and St. Louis, was covered with ice to an average depth of probably three-quar- ters of a mile, making, we may suppose, 3,000,000 cubic miles of ice. This ice represents the excess of the snowfall above the melting power of the sun over that region, and it was all first lifted up in vapor from the ocean. To produce a glacial mass of such dimensions, water enough was taken from the ocean to lower its level, the world over, one hundred feet. Thus we have the ocean beds relieved from an enormous amount of pressure, and the same amount concentrated upon the northern and central portions of the continent. Thus we have a cause which would, by its local pressure alone, lay open immense fissures along the lines of weakness west of the Rocky Mountains, and force out of them the liquid streams of lava which have produced such significant changes upon the Pacific coast."
It was in connection with the great climatic disturbances above described by Prof. Wright that the sub-glacial floods poured down from Millard canyon, and the upper Arroyo Seco, and the La Canyada valley, bursting over or through the barrier ledges and previous deposits which held in place the four terrace lakes before mentioned, within Pasadenaland. Of course this did not all occurr at once, but the process went on both regularly and spasmodically for centuries, before the Arroyo Seco was cut down to its present condition, after some earthquake tremor had started a seam through the foothills where the lower Arroyo now takes its course. This Arroyo gorge from La Canyada down is in a geological sense comparatively recent, and was probably not formed at all until long after our ancient townsite
533
DIVISION EIGHT - SCIENCE.
had been buried under its covering of "glacial till" formation through which the Pasadena colonists were digging down for their reservoir basin, when they found this particular nest of stone relics. And that this Arroyo channel might easily have been started by an earthquake seam, is proved by what really did happen in this region in 1857, an account of which I here quote from the Thompson & West "History of Los Angeles county " [1880], page 53:
"At about half-past eight o'clock, on the morning of January 9, 1857, occurred one of the most memorable earthquakes ever experienced in the southern country. At Los Angeles the vibration lasted about two minutes, the motion being from north to south. The Los Angeles river leaped from its bed, and washed over the adjacent land. A new bed was opened to the San Gabriel river, which divided its waters, making two streams of what was before but one. At San Fernando two buildings were thrown down, and not far away a large stream flowed out from a mountain where hitherto no water had been; and a similar phenomenon was observed at Paredes, thirty-five miles southeast of Los Angeles. In the vicinity of San Fernando a large fissure opened in the side of a high mountain, from which hot gas rushed forth, heating the neighboring rocks to such a degree that the hand could scarcely touch them. But it was in the vicinity of Fort Tejon that the full force of the shock exhausted itself. Here the ground opened for a distance of from thirty to forty miles a chasm ten to twenty feet wide, ex- tending from northwest to southeast, in an almost straight line; then closed again, leaving a ridge of pulverized earth several feet high, and in many places quite impassable. Large trees were broken off like pipe-stems, and cattle grazing upon the hill-sides rolled down the declivity in helpless fright. Here the buildings were all injured to such an extent that officers and soldiers were obliged to live in tents."
The stone-age people who dwelt on our Reservoir Hill were, in my opinion, of as early date (possibly even earlier) as those whose remains were found by Prof. Whitney far under the lava beds of Table Mountain, in Calaveras county. Those Table Mountain proofs of man's existence in California prior to the lava flow have been under critical discussion in the scientific world for thirty years past, and their place in archæology is now pretty well settled. And from Prof. Wright's article in the Atlantic Monthly [April, 1891] I again quote, giving his statement as to the conditions of vegetable and animal life which then existed :
"Primeval man in California found shelter in forests very similar to those which on the discovery of America by Columbus, covered the whole eastern part of the continent. The elm, the birch, the willow, the poplar, the sycamore, the gum tree, the magnolia and the maple spread for him their protecting branches, while the beech tree, as well as the oak and the fig, added its fruit to his limited stock of vegetable food."
" The llama, an ally of the camel, and now confined to South America, was another companion of man in California at that time." [The rhinoceros, several species of horse, cow, and deer, and the inevitable wolf were also here.] "Whether the race of men whose remains are found under Table Mountain [and at Pasadena] became extinct with the horse, rhinoceros and
534
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
mammoth, or whether it migrated south with the llama, we may never know."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.