Altadena’s Beginnings

Altadena’s Beginnings. . , Altadena, an unincorporated area within Los Angeles County, is a town pressed up against the rugged San Gabriel Mountains. It gained its separate and distinct identity over time, often in resistance to its southern, western, and eastern edges being nibbled away at by its larger neighbor to the south, Pasadena Altadena today reflects the independent spirit of early settlers who were attracted to the town's proximity to the wildemess and distance from city hall. , The two maps here, both created in the 1880s, lustrate the distance between reality and the Altadena Dream conjured by the Woodbury brothers. who opened 1000 acres to development in late 1887. The first shows agricultural land broken up into 10 to 500-acre parcels, a rural area with an economy based on grapes, citrus, and a handful of millionaires from the Midwest. The other map is fanciful, intended to attract buyers in the Great Real Estate Boom then centered on Pasadena. It features Altadena's four existing impressive homes. a gushing Millard Canyon falls, non-existent Grand Hotel, and thousands of residential-sized lots. The boom busted just as the Woodburys opened their land for sale; Altadena remained mostly agricultural, growing slowly, for the next 30 years. , Before the Woodburys, the Giddings family settled here in the 1870s. They were farmers, but established a significant business that survives today: the cemetery now known as Mountain View. In the beginning it mostly served Pasadena's population who did not want one within city limits - despite a high death rate due to tuberculosis. , Altadena had only a couple hundred residents in 1900. Most were farmers, whose vineyards gradually gave way to citrus, which requires less fabor Residential use increased as people continued moving to Southern Califomia for health, climate, and to pursue what became known as the California Dream. , Altadena was ideal for this: beautiful mountain views, a distant "local" government that mainly left people alone, and an excellent public transportation system that provided easy access to jobs in Pasadena and Los Angeles. Its population grew in the boom of the 1920s, and reached its cument number, around 43,000, after World War II's GI Bill funded the last building boom. The Woodburys' dream of residential development was fulfilled - 60 years after they first envisioned it. , This map shows land ownership in the Highlands just before 1887 when the Altadena Subdivision was launched by the Woodbury brothers and associates. The lighter color is the area featured on the more fanciful map to the right. , This fanciful 1887 map, representing hopes for the newly formed Altadena subdivision was used to entice buyers during the Great Land Boom. , Altadena's First People , Before the mission period, canyons in this area were key acorn gathering sites for Gabrielino people, whose land stretched from the Pacific around Long Beach to the mountains. Altadena's Millard canyon led to their trade route through the mountains and beyond. By sea and land, these people traded food and items such as baskets, jewelry, and tar - which has been found as far east as the Mississippi River.