The Granite Quarry at Devil’s Gate

The mining and quarrying of minerals and stone has gone on in our local mountains since Europeans first arrived – gold, graphite, gravel and granite. One significant gravel quarry existed in the 1880s at Devil’s Gate in the Arroyo Seco at the eastern edge of La Cañada. Local historian Jo Anne Sadler alerted me to its existence and sent me several items about the quarry and the quarryman, La Cañada resident George Kane.

In 1886, the Los Angeles Herald published the following article: “The Granite Quarry – Pasadena has among its substantial resources a granite quarry from which some of the finest rock in the county is obtained. The quarry at present is controlled by P.P. Dahl and George Kane, and is located at what is properly called Devil’s Gate, which is situated about three miles northwest of Pasadena. Messrs. Dahl and Kane have worked the quarry a little over a year, during which time they have taken out a great deal of material and they say there is still enough left to supply the entire county for many years to come. The stone is of the highest quality and is much sought after by architects and contractors. The color of the granite is very rich and uniform and is free from seams or stains. Pieces as long as 11 or 12 feet have been taken out and, where it is necessary, the proprietors assert that pieces as long as 15 and 16 feet and 4 to 6 feet wide can be obtained. As evidence of the fine quality of granite it would not be out of place to mention that the stone has been used on the Crocker Mansion, ‘The Plaza,’ the LanFranco Building and many others.”

It indeed must have been some fine granite. The Crocker Mansion was perhaps the most grand of the grand mansions built on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. The absolutely massive three-story Victorian home, built for the railroad tycoon Crockers in 1886, was at the corner of Third and Olive streets and dominated the hill. The LanFranco Building was a big three-story commercial/residential structure that towered over the Italian section of old LA, located on Main Street across from today’s City Hall.

There are a few other references from that time period to the fine granite at Devil’s Gate, a couple expressing frustration that the quarry was not used to its fullest capacity. It may be that access to the quarry was difficult or the city objected to a commercial operation going on in its valuable watershed because the Arroyo Seco was Pasadena’s main water supply.

And what of the quarryman and La Cañada resident George Kane? Jo Anne Sadler pins him down to having been born in Ireland, emigrating in the 1870s. The 1896 voter registration has him in La Cañada and after the turn of the century in Pasadena. He apparently was always a stonecutter and he had 10 children. He’s buried in Altadena’s Mountain View Cemetery under an appropriate granite monument. One has to wonder if he cut it himself before he died.

Although evidence of the quarry itself is not visible today (perhaps buried under the Devil’s Gate Dam?), there are two extant pieces of granite locally that probably came from the Devil’s Gate quarry. The first can be found in Hahamongna Watershed Park (formerly Oak Grove Park). If you park in the extreme southern end of the upper lots and hike south toward the dam, you are walking on old Foothill Boulevard. To the side of the ancient concrete roadway are several 6-foot lengths of quarried granite, probably left over from the quarry operations. The second is the original cornerstone of La Cañada’s first church, La Cañada Congregational Church (also known as the Church of the Lighted Window). The cornerstone sits at the entrance of today’s church, rebuilt in 1924. It reads “La Canada Congregational Churche [sic] 1897” and the church’s history says that it was “cut and lettered by George Kane, a well-known Catholic layman and stonemason.”

The 120-year-old cornerstone is a touching reminder of old La Cañada’s Devils Gate quarry.

  mike lawler