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 69
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On the Pasadena Highlands, at the head of Lake Avenue, Mr. Mel- ville Wood has a well which he dug in August, 1882, only thirty feet deep, and the water stands in it steadily eight feet deep. This place is next east from Fred Woodbury's place. Mr. Wood has also an experimental well which he dug in December, ISSI, on the lowest or southeast corner of his place, which is only thirteen feet deep, and has one foot of water. In the same vicinity, and a little farther eastward, Mr. Hodgkins has a well thirty- five feet deep. And on the Dr. Ellis place there is one twenty-five feet in depth. But on the Swartwout place, farther south, and probably more than 100 feet lower down, a well was dug to the depth of 125 feet without getting water, and was abandoned and filled up ; though later digging on other farms show that a good supply of water would probably have been obtained if the digging had been continued far enough.
[NOTE .- Some time prior to 1880, Mr. H. G. Monks dug a well a few rods north of Monks' Hill to a depth of 133 feet, and obtained water. When Painter & Ball, in ISSI, bought from Mr. Monks his 2,000 acres of land, they dug this well two feet deeper, and water stood in it usually about twelve feet deep ; but in 1885 it went dry. Mr. Monks had also run a tun-
565
DIVISION RIGHT -SCIENCE.
nel forty or fifty feet into the north side of Monks' Hill, and found a little moisture but no flow of water, Then in 1884 Painter & Ball dug a well 100 feet deep with three feet of water, on what is now the Tebbett's place, near the Washington schoolhouse .- ED.]
On Villa street, on land now owned by Mr. J. Blatenburg, there is a bored and piped well 490 feet deep, with 340 feet of water standing in it. This well was sunk by Mr. Craig, after whom Craig Avenue was named, in order to test the problem of artesian water in that vicinity. Further east, on Villa street, S. Bundy has a well 174 feet deep. Alfred Hutchins, on the corner of Villa street and Hill Avenue, has a well 160 feet deep, with eight feet of water. A. Becker, corner of Villa street and Craig Avenue, has a well 170 feet deep, with nineteen to twenty feet of water. J. D. Kootz.has a well 148 feet deep, with four feet of water. C. D. Curtis' well on Santa Anita Avenue, the road that leads into Eaton Canyon, is 102 feet deep, with two feet of water. And P. B. Langworthy's well on Craig Avenue, is 130 feet deep, with four feet of water. On the Allen ranch, north of J. F. Crank's place, and the one that gave name to Allen Avenue, a well was dug 180 feet without finding water. On Colorado street, H. R. Case's well is 108 feet, with four or five feet of water. C. Maudlin's well is 110 feet, with seven to eight feet of water. Peter Sumstine's well, corner of Colo- rado street and Craig Avenue, is 93 feet deep, with twelve feet of water. I. McCollum's well, 117 feet, with ten feet of water. J. R. Giddings' well, Io feet, and six feet of water. A. M. Byram's well, 113 feet, and ten feet of water. Dr. Aikens' well, 96 feet, with four to five feet of water. On Marengo Avenue, M. W. McGee has a well ninety-four feet deep, with ten feet of water ; and G. T. Stamm's well is eighty feet deep.
On Fair Oaks Avenue, M. Sandeman's well is twenty-six feet deep, with six to eight feet of water. John S. Mills's well, eighteen feet, with six feet of water. H. A. Wallis's well, fourteen feet, with five feet of water. These three wells are all in the adobe land, down near the Raymond Hill ; and at the north-east foot of this hill is an outcrop of water formerly known as the Bacon spring which was the head of a brook flowing down across the old Bacon Ranch. [Raymond Creek.] On Columbia street, Mr. John Werner has a well ninety-six feet deep in which the water stands fifty-four feet, and is pure, soft water. It seems to come from a bed or stratum of clay almost entirely free from the lime and iron elements which make " hard water" of our water supply generally, whether it comes direct from moun- tain canyons, or the Arroyo, or from wells. In the same general vicinity around Mr. Werner's we find the Edwards wells, (recently bought by Mr. Raymond), sixty-five feet deep, with eight feet of water; Mrs. Riggins' well, seventy feet, with eight feet of water; D. Raab's well, fifty-eight feet, with eighteen feet of water; A. O. Porter and P. M. Green's well, seventy feet, with eight feet water ; Judge Eaton's well, forty-six feet, with six feet water.
On the Arroyo Drive, above California street, Mr. Bruso has a well forty feet deep, with twenty feet of water. Below California street, Mr. Baker and Mr .. Barcus, and Miss Bishop each has a well twenty feet deep, with about five feet of water ; and Mrs. Glover's well is twenty-nine feet, with five feet water. S. Washburn, corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Val- ley street, had a well eighty-three feet deep, with ten feet of water, and a steam pump to lift it; but it caved in during the excessive rains and flood- wash of February and March, 1884, and has not been reopened.
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
The following additional wells were noted, without learning their street locations : G. N. Briggs, 83 feet, with 12 feet water ; E. H. Royce, 91 feet, with 7 feet water ; J. Butler, bored and iron-tubed well, 70 feet, with 30 feet water ; D. W. Shellhamer, 83 feet ; Mr. Biedebach, 186 feet; Mr. Gripper, 83 feet ; Messrs. E. A. Bonine, James Williams, Joseph Wallace and others also have wells, the figures of which were not obtained. John Werner, J. Butler, and Mr. Hammond expressed confidence that they can obtain artesian water by going down 500 to 1,000 feet.
Here are forty-six wells named within the neighborhood known as Pasadena, varying in depth from fourteen to 490 feet deep, and scattered about in all parts of the settlement ; and there are probably ten or twelve more not noted. It is therefore pretty plain that Pasadena has resources to soak the heads of dry weather croakers, even should the clouds go farrow and the mountain streams dwindle all this year. [March, 1885.]
[NOTE .- Mr. John S. Mills, mentioned above, has since informed me that he dug his well in 1882; that water was found at fifteen feet from the surface, and at twenty-one feet it came in so fast that it yielded twenty gal- lons per minute, and drove the workmen out. The John Werner well re- ferred to was first dug by Hon. P. M. Green, a short time before Mills's well, and a moderate supply of water was obtained at a depth of forty-seven to fifty feet. Then after Mr. Werner bought the place he drilled this well about fifty feet deeper, and more than doubled the supply of water, having penetrated the bed of clay which Judge Eaton refers to as occurring in his tunnel and others along the Glacial Terrace. This clay formation is the " boulder clay " of geology, and was originally the fine mud that settled along the borders of a glacier-then it was covered by later material, and pressed into a tough, arenaceous clay (intermixed with boulders and cobble- stones) by the weight of deposits above it.]
Since the above list of wells was published, in March, 1885, a great many other wells and tunnels have been dug in Pasadenaland, and I have obtained notes on a few of them. In 1887, when the Oak Knoll syndicate was engaged in subdividing and improving their picturesque tract they dug a well 140 feet deep. Water was first found at twenty-two feet; and at fifty-six feet a water-bearing stratum was reached, which made the water rise six feet in the well, and it remained at that height-only sixteen feet from surface-but boring was continued to a total of 140 feet from the surface. Then a steam pump was tried, and it could not perceptibly lower the water line. July 6, 1895, I investigated this well again ; and found the steam pump at work lifting 4,420 gallons of water per hour for ten hours each day, without perceptibly lowering the supply. George Hyatt was the engineer in charge. The covered reservoir at ground level holds 250,000 gallons ; and the tank, twenty-one feet above ground, holds 60,000 gallons. About a fourth or third of a mile farther south on this tract there is a series of tunnel and trench surface springs which yield a good supply of water.
In 1887, Harold S. Channing dug a well on his father's place on Orange
567
DIVISION EIGHT-SCIENCE.
Grove Avenue, across the street east from Reservoir hill. After passing through the surface soil or "glacial till " formation, fifteen or twenty feet, there was a continued alternation of water-wash layers of sand, gravel, cobblestones-each time in this consecutive order. Then at about 100 feet below the surface he encountered a stratum of pipe-clay which was eighteen feet thick. As soon as this was passed through, a water-bearing bed of sand and gravel was met with and penetrated two feet, yielding an abundant supply of water. The total depth of the well was 120 feet. The bed of pipe-clay passed through in this case is the same that crops out in the bluff and in the roadway gully at foot of the hill road leading down to the Linda Vista bridge. [See page 559.]
In the spring of 1890, Dr. R. H. Shoemaker, at corner of Craig Avenue and San Pasqual street, bored a well seventy-five feet deep, in which water stands twenty feet. A steam pump was tried on it at forty lifts per minute. This rapid rate succeeded in breaking the machinery but not in emptying the well. I visited this well on September 10, 1894, and found a gas engine steadily at work pumping 1,000 gallons per hour, as stated by the pump- man in charge.
In 1890 Joseph Heslope sunk two wells 500 feet deep on his place be- tween the Titus and Winston farms, and they flowed over the surface, but not strong enough to suit, so he tapped them with outflow pipes six feet below the surface, and got a stream of nine inches of water; and this water is now piped away to San Gabriel and Savannah.
In October, 1891, Mrs. Black, on south side of San Pasqual street opposite Dr. Shoemaker's, sunk a well 100 feet deep, with a stand of sixty feet of water in the tube.
In 189!, L. H. Titus sunk a well on his peach farm on California street and Santa Anita Avenue to a depth of 500 feet, and water stands in it to within thirteen feet of the surface.
In 1892 A. J. Painter sunk a well fifty-five feet deep, on Painter's Flat at the Arroyo Park grounds, near where his dummy railroad then ran from the Painter hotel down to Devil's Gate; and from it was pumped a steady stream of seven miners' inches. Then a few rods southwest from this, J. Benj. Wilson had a well near the Arroyo bank, forty-five feet deep with three feet of water, which had stood true for five or six years. But in 1894 the water companies run a tunnel forty feet below the bottom of the well and drained it dry. This shows that there is a barrier ledge or dyke or waterproof rim of some sort between the underground basin and the Arroyo gorge. P. W. Lloyd owns this Wilson place now, and has a well shaft eighty-five feet deep to the bottom of the tunnel, from which he raises water by a windmill.
In the summer of 1893, C. S. Carpenter, at corner of California street and Shorb Avenue, sunk a well 120 feet deep, and tested it with a steam
568
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
pump that raised 2,400 gallons of water per hour, without perceptibly dimin- ishing the supply. Mr. Carpenter informed me that the first fifty feet down seemed to be a soil formation just like the surface ; then water was met with, and the boring was through sand, gravel, boulders, etc., all the rest of the way down. The water continually stands at fifty feet from the surface, but rises no higher, that being the normal water level in our submerged ancient lake-bed ; and that fifty feet of soil represents the depth or thickness of the glacial till formation at that particular point.
In September-October, 1894, Col. O. S. Picher and his son, sunk a well at their home place on Magnolia Avenue below California street. They bored to a depth of 120 feet and got seventy feet of water; then a steam pump was put in and run at its best endeavor for twenty-four hours without perceptibly lowering the water in the well.
In March and April, 1895, the Electric R. R. Co. sunk a well 8 x 12 feet in size, and 25 feet deep from surface, inside the northeast corner of their great truss-roof car house. For two weeks it was necessary to keep a rotary pump running at full speed night and day, to keep the water out so that the diggers could continue their work. I visited the place five times during the progress of this well. As to the amount of water being pumped out, the workmen gave me different statements ; some I knew lied to me, and I distrusted all of them, but had no means of measuring it myself; yet I noted that the pump was throwing a steady 3-inch stream with such force as to project it six feet from the outlet in a fall of about four feet. This is the largest well service yet developed in Pasadena's ancient underground lake.
April 18, 1895, I inspected the Santa Fe R. R. Co.'s well at Raymond station. It is 8 x 8 feet in size and 16 feet deep, and usually fills from 7 to 8 feet during summer months ; but the pump man thought the Electric Car Co.'s big new well had perceptibly lessened his supply, while it was being dug and its water-flow all pumped, out. With a 21/2 inch outlet he could pump his well empty in 172 hours; then it would take about three hours for it to fill up again. The R. R. tank is 18 feet deep and holds 52,000 gallons. The 112 hours pumping would raise the water line about two feet, which would measure 5,778 gallons of water. He thought this well would have to be dug deeper eventually.
ARTESIAN WELL BORINGS.
The first historic effort in this line was made by James Craig, a native of England, who came here in 1869, as agent for the Grogan tract of 5,000 acres, and took 150 acres of it for his own home, where he still resides, at the head of Craig Avenue. He calls his place "The Hermitage." The well in question was on the south side of Villa street near Wilson Avenue, and was drilled and piped to a depth of 490 feet ; water stood in it 340 feet deep, but this was 150 feet short of coming to the surface for overflow, and
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DIVISION EIGHT - SCIENCE.
hence was not an artesian well at all. It was a costly and sorry experiment for Mr. Craig, but was really the most heroic and valuable thing that had yet been done toward finding out what were the subterranean water re- sources of Pasadenaland. This was in 1880 or '81.
About the same time the Foord Brothers had obtained a flowing well in a cienega or bog at foot of Santa Anita Avenue, this bog being a pocket in the Craig Avenue swale on the road between the original Ford and Winston farms, and out of it flowed Foord's creek. The Foord Bros.'s farm is the northwest part of lands of the East San Gabriel Land and Water Co., as shown on the official map of Pasadena, but is now owned by E. K. Alex- ander. The well was tubed, and flows there yet, close by the east side of the road.
The next notable effort on this line occurred early in 1886, and I copy here a report of it which I made in the Valley Union of May 28, 1886 :
"Mr. L. H. Titus has recently completed a remarkably successful artesian well. It is 290 feet deep from the surface, flowing out on higher ground than any other artesian well yet made in that region, and it flows freely to a height of eight feet and three inches above the surface. The water from this artesian well is as clear as crystal and gives no taste of mineral properties, but is warm, its temperature being 72 degrees Fahrenheit. It took them over three months to make this well. At seven feet from the sur- face they struck boulders and had to drill through them. At the depth of 218 feet they found a stratum of cement rock 21 feet thick, and in this they could drill about two feet per day. At 284 feet they struck the rounded side of a granite boulder which their tools could not phase. In forcing the tubing down it was bent and partly flattened against this rock. Here was the point where 99 men out of 100 would have given up,-but Mr. Titus stuck to it with iron grit-invented tools to rasp away the side of that flinty rock-kept up the unequal struggle at that abysmal depth for three weeks- finally forced the passage and then in a short time reached a bed of sand and gravel six feet lower, and here came the splendid flow of water above described."
The " stratum of cement rock 21 feet thick," above mentioned as being met with at 218 feet below the surface, is the eastern dip of the conglomi- erate formation which crops out as "Eagle Rock," three or four miles west of Pasadena, and is again exposed by erosion at the mouth of San Rafael [or Johnson's] creek opposite foot of Columbia street, and is seen low down in east bank of the Arroyo Seco right across from the mouth of San Rafael creek.
The next important artesian venture was that of E. F. Hurlbut on South Orange Grove Avenue. In speaking of this the Pasadena Star of April 10, 1889, said :
"A looser formation was struck yesterday than the drill had been pass- ing through for some time, but nothing else. At a depth of 480 feet the first spring was struck since leaving the surface water at a depth of sixty-six feet. The water raised in the well twenty feet yesterday."
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
The Pasadena Standard of September 21, 1889, said :
"E. F. Hurlbut's well borers are down more than 900 feet, which is very nearly to sea level, but no artesian flow yet. This is the deepest boring ever made in this section of country."
In my geological report before the Science Association of Southern California, in January, 1894, I gave the following account of this well :
"The boring made on E. F. Hurlbut's place on Orange Grove Avenue in 1889-90 was a truly heroic struggle of hope against hope and faith against fate. It went down 1310 feet without striking bed-rock -nothing but boulders, sand, gravel, etc. Water stood in the tube at sixty feet from the surface, but rose no higher. The bore commenced ten inches in diameter, and a few hundred feet down was reduced to six inches. The massive steel drill, which with its necessary tackle, couplings, etc., was thirty feet long and one-and-a-quarter tons weight, finally dropped aslant into a boulder cavity and became inextricably fastened in one or more of three possible ways : either by slant leverage against the walls of the cavity; or by a slip or crowding down of a large boulder upon it; or by its own expansion from the increased temperature at that depth. My own opinion is that both of the two last named causes operated in the case, and probably the first also. At any rate, five months were spent in vain efforts to extricate that drill. A two-inch hemp cable was broken ; then a one and one-fourth inch wire cable was obtained, a hydraulic press lifter attached and worked up to a lifting strain of 100 tons, when this powerful wire cable broke also; and the well and tools had to be abandoned at last, with, of course, great loss to the con- tractor, Mr. Charles E. Mosher, of Pasadena, besides about $10,000 loss to Mr. Hurlbut, who wanted to go down at least 2,000 feet, anyway, before giving up the project to get artesian water, or oil, or something."
In 1891 Mr. Geo. S. Patton bored for artesian water in Mission canyon. At a depth of fifty or sixty feet some water had been found ; then a clay dyke twenty-five to thirty feet in thickness was passed through, and the water already in the well disappeared. The boring was continued to a depth of 200 feet, but no water obtained. In 1874-75 a well had been bored on the east line of Mr. Shorb's place, below the bluff, with experience very similar to that I have given of the Patton well. And about the same time Mr. Mayberry had the same experience in boring for artesian water near the "old mill." Mr. Patton had bored too far south to strike the water bed for which the clay dyke served as a submerged dam, and the others were entirely below the dyke. This clay dyke was the same bed of "boulder clay " first discovered and recognized by Judge Eaton in his water tunnel, in 1882, as heretofore mentioned. And in August, 1894, Gervaise Purcell cut through it by a tunnel which he run for Mrs. Gov. Stoneman, in the lower part of Oak Knoll canyon. Mr. Purcell ranks high as a hydraulic engineer ; and I wrote him inquiring if he had met with this clay deposit at any other points where it would seem to be a part of the same original bed or stratum. Here is his reply :
LOS ANGELES, CAL., January 19, 1895. DR. H. A. REID, - DEAR SIR : I have found the "boulder clay," as
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DIVISION EIGHT -SCIENCE.
you classify it, in a tunnel recently run by me on the old Miguel White place, subsequently owned by James Foord, and now in the possession of E. K. Alexander. This place lies immediately east of the Winston rancho. In this case it is largely mixed with boulders, but very little sand or gravel. When taken out it forms a glutinous, plastic mass, and is exceedingly fine, so much so that when mixed with water it will pass through any crevice that that liquid will. This deposit lies about forty-six feet below the surface, and is uptilted so as to render the ground back of it impervious ; in fact, we seem to be passing through the side of a bowl into a basin filled with a mixture of this clay and boulders. I found no fossils. The nature of this material here suggests very forcibly the truth of your theory that it is a clay formed by the grinding together of large stones. Very truly yours,
GERVAISE PURCELL.
In 1892 Hon. J. De Bartlı Shorb bored an artesian well in the upper part of Mill canyon, at the foot of Lake Avenue. He kept a record of the number of feet passed through of each different kind of material and preserved a sample of the material each time, in a long case of little glass-covered boxes. This case is preserved at his great winery four miles south of Pasadena, where I spent the day, April 10, 1894, examining its contents and giving name to each sample-for before this they had remained unnamed ; the samples were there, with accompanying figures, but no explanation or description whatever. And this is the first and only complete geological section that I have learned of ever being pre- served, out of all the scores of wells that have been bored or dug within Pasadenaland .* It is of much value and interest to geologists and hydraulic engineers, and also to any person who may contemplate sinking a well in that region - hence I give it here :
NO. OF KIND OF MATERIAL.
FEET IN THICKNESS.
SAMPLE.
I .- Brown and gray fine gravel.
2 .- Sandy clay ....
40
3 .- Coarse gray gravel. 16
4 .- Drab colored light clay-calcareous
13
5 .- Coarse gray gravel.
29
6 .- Sandy clay
2
7 .- Light colored granite ...
12
8 .- Brownish fine sandy clay.
2
9 .- Brown sand and gravel.
14
10 .- Light colored sand and gravel.
8
II .- Light snuff-colored sandy clay.
6
12 .- Fine gray gravel and sand.
I2
13 .- Fine brown sand ..
6
14 .- Coarser gray gravel and sand.
38
15 .- Brownish grit clay, slightly calcareous
2
16 .- Light and brown gravel with sand.
22
17 .- Snuff-colored calcareous clay, with grit.
6
18 .- Light colored fine gravel.
6
19 .- Brownish grit clay, slightly calcareous
2
20 .- Coarse and fine light colored gravel.
12
Total depth.
259
* The 1000-feet record given on page 552 was made over three years after this one by Mr. Shorb.
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
By former experience, Mr. Shorb had learned pretty nearly where the clay dyke or dam lay, and took pains to sink this well above it so as to test the permanent water level of the great underground basin. He then run a tunnel from lower down the canyon so as to tap the well at a point consider- ably below the permanent water level and thus obtain a liberal continuous flow. He informs me that he has tapped twelve wells in this way at points from ten to thirty-seven feet below their natural outflow, and in each case obtained from ten to twenty per cent. more water. The Winston farm, next east of Shorb's, has some wells tapped in the same way. Also the Heslope place next north of Winston's. But this is only practicable along the line of the glacial terrace and its clay dyke or submerged dam.
WATER TUNNELS.
From my geological report in January, 1894, I quote this amusing bit of tunnel history :
"In1 1882 Judge B. S. Eaton tunneled into the basin rim at his place on the South Pasadena bluff and obtained a good flow of water. Then David Raab run a tunnel on his land farther east and lower down than Eaton's, and got a flow of water ; but, lo! Eaton's tunnel went dry. Raab then sold this part of his land to Mr. Lightfoot and made another tunnel for himself farther east and a little lower down, with the result that he obtained water but Lightfoot's tunnel went dry. Next, H. D. Bacon made a tunnel on his land, farther east and lower down than Raab's, and got a good supply of water, but Raab's tunnel went dry. And the Bacon tunnel remains yet, being the one now owned by the Raymond Improvement Co. These four successive tunnels all tapped the basin rim, the last one, however, being lowest down and nearest the flowage bed of this local basin's natural storm- wash outlet- the depression or gully which rises west of Grace Hill, cuts across Columbia street, and debouches near Fair Oaks station on the Los Angeles Terminal railroad. For convenience I designate it as the "West Basin gully."
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