Traveling from Pasadena to La Crescenta in 1886

I haven’t found an account of this journey, but we can piece together our own imagined account from various sources. Let’s imagine you are an old friend of Dr. Briggs, and have been invited to rejuvenate your ailing health in his new settlement of La Crescenta. After spending a few days in Pasadena you hire a coach and head west.

You face the most difficult part of the journey first – crossing the Arroyo Seco. There’s no bridge there, so you descend the steep bank on the Pasadena side, switch-backing between boulders and trees, then fording the rushing stream. The Arroyo Seco stream is very strong, splashing over the backs of your horse team, and jogging the wagon sideways. Now a steep switch-backing climb up the other side, and up onto the slanted plain of the La Cañada Valley.

The land is barren here, a flat plain of sagebrush, with only one or two ranch houses far off. Bouncing over ruts and rocks, your wagon picks up the rough track of Michigan Avenue (today’s Foothill) heading in a westerly direction. Smaller trails heading to remote ranches branch from the main road, disappearing into the tall sagebrush. Your wagon scares up huge flocks of quail and doves, and they thunder into the sky. As well, seemingly hundreds of huge jackrabbits dart from the road at your approach.

In the distance you hear the occasional pop of shotguns from distant hunters. Intermittently you see laboring Mexicans clearing land for future orchards, and harvesting the sagebrush stumps for firewood.

You pass the crude general store at La Cañada, with a handful of houses behind it. Beyond you can see the larger Lanterman and Williams homes. You continue, dipping down into some deep ravines where wooden bridges cross small streams, then climb a small rise (where the YMCA is today). From the rise, you view La Crescenta and tangible signs of civilization ahead – cleared land and newly planted orchards punctuated by the distant sound of hammers and saws. It seems there are rocks everywhere now, and each cleared field is bordered by big piles of collected rocks. The sight reminds you that when you left from Pasadena, an old-timer called your destination by its old name “Big Rocks,” instead of its new name “La Crescenta.” And indeed the road now jogs and curves around several boulders. Your wagon dips down into a shallow creek (Pickens) and you note that a trout darts away into a deeper pool.

Here you pass a road headed straight up the hill (Briggs Avenue) through a young olive orchard, ending at a green, well-treed terrace (Briggs Terrace). Smoke curls from a chimney of a low white house on the terrace – Dr. Briggs’ home. You pause to watch two wagon-loads of big logs creak slowly down the hill, being driven by “Chinamen.” You continue on, passing a couple of large mansions busily under construction and a cleared area where a two-story hotel will soon be built. Your destination, a wooden general store and post office, is in sight now. You pass a small public park on your left containing a delightful crescent-shaped fish pond. The wagon turns around and you alight. Kitty-corner across the intersection of Michigan and Los Angeles (Foothill and La Crescenta) you see the engineer/inventor Mr. Holly moving furniture into his new modern home (with indoor plumbing!). Right next door, workers are beginning work on a new schoolhouse to be made of cement, imported from Germany and virtually unheard of in California.

Another wagon approaches to take you to the terrace. But the driver isn’t Dr. Briggs, it’s an older gentleman who introduces himself as “General” Shields (he winks when he says “General” to let you know it’s a nickname). He says he’s a neighbor of the doctor, who is feeling poorly today from his consumption (tuberculosis). You remark to the General that you have never before breathed such clean air, and he replies that that’s why we are all here, to breathe the most healthful air in the world.

As you climb into the wagon, you already feel healthier.

  mike lawler