Pioneer Memories: C.J. Reinhard

I quote here from a 1938 interview with Mrs. Reinhard, who had some interesting memories of the topography of the Crescenta Valley. As before, my inserted comments are in brackets [ ].

The Reinhard family was a Montrose pioneer, moving here in 1917. Although Montrose was established in 1913, very few homes were built until the early ’20s. The Reinhards built one of Montrose’s signature buildings, the Reinhard Building, better known today as the Black Cow restaurant. The two-story brick building at 2219 Honolulu Ave. has hosted a variety of businesses since it was built in the early ’20s. In the ’30s it was a Pontiac dealership and in the ’70s it was home to the iconic Here, There and After record store.

Mrs. Reinhard said that the family “rented their present home [2215 Glenada, taken by the freeway in the 1960s] for two months to see if the climate was beneficial to asthma, and if they could stand the solitude.

“The first year we lived here the children, Katherine and Richard, went with their father to a Los Angeles school. As it made for a long day for them, they enrolled the following year at La Crescenta, then a two-teacher school. They were the only children in the [Montrose] tract, and they played hide-and-seek in a forest of greasewood and scrub oak. [Greasewood, or chaparral, on the valley floor could get five or six feet high, creating an impenetrable forest for children.]

“The town of La Crescenta was 1½ miles from our home. Between was a valley filled with high brush and Pickens Wash filled with huge boulders. A stream about 10 feet wide ran all winter. [There was more water in Pickens Wash then, before it was tapped out for agriculture.] This section, filled with rabbits and other wild game, was used by hunters. The one way to La Crescenta was by way of Honolulu Avenue, an oiled road that was hard to get through at a point near Rosemont on account of water washing over the road. The other way was by way of Michigan Avenue, now Foothill Boulevard, a narrow ribbon of oiled road that went up and down and around every little hill, and seemed so far away. [An “oiled road” was a dirt road with black oil sprinkled on it to keep the dust down. And yes, our straight, wide Foothill Boulevard did wind around barriers, such as hills, and did descend and ascend gullies.]

“We had one connecting link with our neighbors, the ‘dinky’ as we called our street car. [Glendale and Montrose Railway, an electric trolley line. They had a couple of very small single-truck trolleys the locals called the “dinky.”] I think all the old-timers liked the ‘dinky’ and hated to see it go. [It went out of business in 1930.] The motormen knew us all and seemed to know about when we were to travel, and would whistle and wait for passengers. However, this ran on Montrose Avenue and the street ended at Ocean View. The streetcar continued along a high trestle bridge over the [Pickens] Wash and beyond Rosemont. But it was timed wrong for the school children. [This was something I was unaware of, but very old photos confirm. Initially Montrose Avenue ended just past Ocean View, but the trolley tracks continued. There would have had to be a small trestle railroad bridge over Pickens Wash.]

“As walking was dangerous over the trestle bridge, we blazed a trail by cutting through the brush where Glenada and Altura now run, coming out at Rosemont and Prospect. The stream was always a problem in winter as the children had to jump from stone to stone. Years later we were distressed to see homes built in this area in the path of flood waters.” [Indeed homes were built in the wash during summers when it was dry by easterners who didn’t understand the intermittent floods that occur in the wash. We still see that today.]

Mrs. Reinhard gives an interesting view of the valley. It was cut by deep rocky gullies and thick stands of brush, and was not easily traversed.