Pasadena

“ If Pasadena is a big garden with pretty homes scattered all through its shade and flowers, then Riverside is an immense orange grove, having one city-like street, with substantial business blocks and excellent stores, two banks, one in the Evans block, especially fine in all its architecture and arrangements, and the rest is devoted by the land-owners to raising oranges and making them pay. You will see flowers enough to overwhelm a Broadway florist, every sort of cereal, every fruit that grows, in prime condition for the table ten months out of the twelve. ”

“ An electric railroad will soon connect Los Angeles with Pasadena and Mount Wilson, and a fine hotel is to be placed on the top of Echo Mountain, 3500 feet high, and this will then certainly be the ideal health and pleasure resort of the world.
Pasadena's homes, protected on three sides by mountain ranges, are surrounded by groves and gardens, trees and hedges from every clime. Everything will grow and flourish here. Capitalists from the East seem engaged in a generous rivalry to create the ideal paradise. ”

“ The physical laboratory, computers' offices and instrument construction shops of the Solar Observatory are in Pasadena. About 5 m. south-east of Pasadena, in the township of San Gabriel (pop. 2501 in 1900) , is the Mission (monastery) de San Gabriel Arcangel, founded in 1771. Pasadena is one of the most beautiful places in southern California. Fruits and flowers and sub-tropical trees and small plants grow and bloom the year round in its gardens. ”

“ Pasadena, like all the California towns and cities, covers very large tracts of country. There is a thriving business centre, not very far from which are the great Raymond Hotel and other winter resorts for the throngs of tourists who are almost as important to the revenues of California as they are to Italy. ”

“ The Department of Justice got all of this as well, as did the Postmaster General in Washington.
In Pasadena you might run against a count or countess or baroness almost any way you looked. There was the Baroness P——, wife of a Philadelphia man, who spends her winters in a Pasadena hotel. Very pro-German before we went to war, but more quiet since then. She is watched whenever she is in Pasadena. It’s getting so a lady can [Pg 359] do hardly anything at all without those vulgar, dreadful people knowing all about it! ”

“ It must be said, however, that there is less verdure here than in well-cared-for eastern towns of corresponding size, and that Los Angeles, and even Pasadena, notwithstanding their many palm trees, have on the whole a bare appearance, compared with a city like New Haven, with its majestic elms and robe of vivid green, which even in autumn seems to dream of summer bloom. Nevertheless, Los Angeles is clean, and poverty and squalor rarely show themselves; while, in the suburbs of the city, even the humblest dwellings are frequently surrounded by palm trees, and made beautiful by flowers. ”

“ Pasadena, said to be derived from the Chippewa Indian language. The full name is said to be Weoquan Pasadena, and the meaning to be “Crown of the Valley.” Let no man believe in the absurd story that it means “Pass of Eden.”
Prado (meadow) . “The Prado” is also the name of a famous promenade in the city of Madrid.
Puente (bridge) , in Los Ángeles County, was taken from the name of the land grant, Rancho de la Puente.
Pulgas Creek (fleas creek) . ”

“ Southern California is not only a locality, it is a type. It cannot be defined by merely mentioning parallels of latitude. We think of it and love it as the dreamland of the Spanish Missions, and as a region rescued from aridity, and made a home for the invalid and the winter tourist. Los Angeles is really its metropolis, but San Diego, Pasadena, and Santa Barbara are prosperous and progressive cities whose population increases only less rapidly than their ambition. ”

“ The Pasadena Colony, located on the southwest corner of the well-known San Pasqual Rancho, is scarce three years old, but it is growing rapidly, like a pet tree, and already forms one of the best contributions to culture yet accomplished in the county. ”

“ Pasadena and Riverside of course must not be passed by. A short stay at Orange or Anaheim gives an interesting glimpse of a region where orange culture is combined with that of other citrus fruits, as well as the grape and olive.
Aside from these points, the most interesting feature of the trip is the "loop" beyond San Bernardino. The town of San Bernardino is a thriving business centre. Perhaps it is on this account that its appearance from the car window is not as attractive as that of Riverside or Pasadena, which from all points of view seem peacefully embowered in half-tropic foliage. ”

“ War work has brought out much latent ability of this kind. Lilies of the field, who had never needed to toil or spin for themselves, were glad to do so for the Red Cross. In Pasadena we had a small Spanish street (inside a building) , with tiny shops on either side, where you could buy anything from an oil painting to a summer hat. In front was a gay little plaza with vines and a fountain, where lunch and tea were served by the prettiest girls in town [Pg 166] in bewitching frilled caps with long black streamers and sheer lawn aprons over blue and green frocks. ”

“ While he is discoursing I will be studying the history of the Indian baskets and report later.
CHAPTER VII. CAMPING ON MOUNT WILSON.
"On every height there lies repose."
At Pasadena the mountain wall which guards the California of the South stands very near and looks down with pride upon the blooming garden below. The mountains which belong especially to Pasadena are but three miles away. Their average height exceeds slightly that of the Mt. Washington range in New Hampshire. The Sierra Madre system, of which they form a part, contains some peaks considerably higher. ”

“ The very impulsiveness of the climate seems to give the most wonderful results in the way of vegetables and fruit. Around Pasadena there are acres and acres of truck gardens, developed with Japanese efficiency. I love al fresco marketing. If I can find time once a week to motor up the valley and fill the machine with beautiful, crisp, fresh green things of all kinds, it makes housekeeping a pleasure. ”

“ One of the best proofs of the health-giving power of this air is the fact that the physicians practising here, with one exception, came seriously ill and have not only recovered, but are strong enough to keep very busy helping others.
Pasadena has no ragged shabby outskirts; the poorer classes seem to be able to own or rent pretty little homes, some like large birdcages, all well kept and attractive. Some gentlemen from Indianapolis came here in 1873 and started the town, planting their orange orchards under the shadows of the mountains. ”

“ I found the night air extremely unpleasant last winter, and after hearing from a veracious druggist, to whom I applied for a gargle, that there was an epidemic of grip in the city, and that many died of pneumonia and that a small majority of the invalids got well, I packed my trunk hastily and started for Pasadena.
Those who live in the city and those who do not dislike raw, bracing winds from the ocean pronounce Los Angeles to be the only place worth living in in all Southern California. ”

“ Before I left, on the way, and about San Francisco, I was told I must not return without seeing
LOS ANGELES.
I gave two days returning, one of them Sunday, to this surpassingly beautiful city. "You must see Pasadena, Long Beach, Riverside and Mount Lowe," a friend said and another suggested a trip to San Diego and I know not how many other places, but the line had to be drawn somewhere and this is the last place for me on this trip. "There is nothing in a name," but here is one I found, there is something in: "Pueblo de la Reina de los Angelise." ”

“ The Rancho San Pascual has always been a famous ranch. Its owners have always been prominent in the affairs of California and in the Pueblo of Los Angeles. It has always been famed for beauty and today within its far-flung boundaries are the world famous cities of Altadena, Pasadena, South Pasadena and parts of San Marino. ”

“ Probably before the new century is half a decade old more than a million people will have their homes here.
The portion of this region lying immediately at the foot of Mount Lowe is the most thickly populated section of Southern California. Directly underneath, within a few miles of its base, is the beautiful city of Pasadena, with its sixteen thousand people, and just beyond the Mission Hills, the metropolis of the southwest, Los Angeles, is located, with one hundred and forty thousand population. ”

“ There is a place on the beach by the coast road between Pasadena and San Diego where we always have lunch on our journeys to and from town. Just after you leave the picturesque ruins of the Capistrano Mission in its sheltered valley, you come out suddenly on the ocean, and the road runs by the sand for miles. With a salt breeze blowing in your face you can't resist the lunch box long. With a stuffed [Pg 82] egg in one hand and a sandwich in the other, Joedy, aged eight, observed on our last trip south, "This is the bright side of living." ”

“ Alas, they are buried now in their American coveralls and corduroys.
What happened to us? Did we grow too unwieldy, or too sophisticated or were we swamped with midwest sobriety? We gave our parade to Pasadena, who put it in wintry January instead of fragrant, flowering April; San Bernardino has the orange show, fiesta has disappeared altogether. But I have heard whispers that indicate that mayhap the spirit of pageantry and frolic is about to return to Los Angeles.
Many changes have come but each phase as it exists seems the natural condition ”

“ Roberts.
"It is the flower festival at Pasadena that always takes place on New Year's Day. Every go-cart and wheelbarrow in the place dresses up in flowers and parades the streets. I thought it would be rather fun to be in the parade with my motor car," Carter told Jack.
"Oh, wouldn't it?" said Jack. "Take me, Carter?"
"We'll see. The honor of being in it is to be accorded to the one who will suggest the most appropriate scheme of decorations for my car. That is what Mrs. Bobs and I decided on. Those who are not inlookers can be onlookers from some point of vantage. ”

“ Thousands of citizens having become rich in Iowa spend their money in this Land of the Afternoon. While they have found California about as nature made it, besides the elements of the air and soil, Los Angeles has an atmosphere that is purely social. It is an attractive place to live, choice people have assembled there, and so, under pleasant conditions, others are drawn. The money in Pasadena never came out of the soil contiguous to the place. ”

“ The inhabitants of Riverside do not concede that Pasadena is a place for orange growers. At Redlands, luckily above frost terrors, the terrible losses at Riverside from that trouble are profusely narrated. San Diego gets its share of humorous belittlement from all. You hear the story quoted of the shrewd Chinee who went to that city to look for business, where one hears much of future developments, but did not settle, saying, "It has too muchee bym-bye." Friends, and especially hotel proprietors, exclaim in disgusted astonishment, "What! ”

“ The Paseo is the favorite afternoon drive of the citizens, where the ladies in open carriages and the gentlemen on horseback pass and repass each other, gayly saluting, the ladies with a coquettish flourish of the fan, and the gentlemen with a peculiar wave of the hand. The Alameda, a promenade and garden combined,—every Spanish city has a spot so designated,—skirts the shore of the harbor on the city side, near the south end of Oficios Street, and is a favorite resort for promenaders, where a refreshing coolness is breathed from off the sea. ”

“ La Presa is a few miles east of San Diego, on the Sweetwater River, no doubt called Agua Dulce by the Spaniards.
Los Rosales (the rose-bushes) , a spot located in the narratives of the Spaniards at about seventeen leagues from San Diego, and two leagues from Santa Margarita. Nothing in the new land brought to the explorers sweeter memories of their distant home than “the roses of Castile” which grew so luxuriantly along their pathway as to bring forth frequent expressions of delight from the padres. ”

“ It is astonishing what a change one sees in little more than a few yards of distance. Once across the bridge from El Paso, and you are in a new atmosphere. El Paso is like a New England town, after all; a little rough here and there, a little strange it may be, like the strangeness of the city pets, the alligators, who sleep in luxurious laziness in the public square; but yet it all was in our ways, and we were at home. But in Juarez all is different. As we drive along, two men by the roadside making adobe looked as if they might have been with the Israelites in Egypt at the same business. ”

“ Westward the ranges of Las Trampas and Alameda, and over them, the high peak of Tamalpais to the northward of the Golden Gate. Far away to the northwest, where Napa, Lake, and Sonoma counties meet, is dimly discernible the summit of Mount St. Helens. A white mist is on the western horizon, but, even as we gaze, the curtain unrolls and lifts from the scene, and we see the city of the Pacific, proud San Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the blue ocean beyond, aye, even a steamer far out at sea, heading for the portal of the golden land. ”

“ But the traveller, who will take the trouble to ascend its bald summit, will be amply compensated by the glorious view it will open to him;— towards the south-east, the hills of Tlascala, surrounded by their green plantations and cultivated cornfields, in the midst of which stands the little village, once the proud capital of the republic. Somewhat further to the south, the eye passes across the beautiful plains lying around the city of Puebla de los Angeles, founded by the old Spaniards, and still rivalling, in the splendour of its churches, the most brilliant capitals of Europe ”