Mount Lowe Railway - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

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The Mount Lowe Railway was the third in a series of scenic mountain railroads

Rail transport

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...

in America created as a tourist attraction on Echo Mountain

Echo Mountain

Echo Mountain is a summit on the Angeles National Forest above Altadena, California.-Geography:Echo Mountain was shaped from an alluvial fan between Rubio and Las Flores canyons. It is geographically defined by Castle Canyon to its leeward side, Rubio Canyon at its foot, and Las Flores Canyon on...

and Mount Lowe

Mount Lowe (California)

Mount Lowe is a mountain on the southern fold of the San Gabriel Mountains. Originally named Oak Mountain, it was renamed for Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, who is credited for being the first white man to set foot on and plant the American flag at its peak, and who built the Mount Lowe Railway to...

, north of Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. The railway, originally incorporated by Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe

Thaddeus S. C. Lowe

Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe , also known as Professor T. S. C. Lowe, was an American Civil War aeronaut, scientist and inventor, mostly self-educated in the fields of chemistry, meteorology, and aeronautics, and the father of military aerial reconnaissance in the United States...

as the Pasadena & Mt. Wilson Railroad Co. existed from 1893 until its official abandonment in 1938, and had the distinction of being the only scenic mountain, electric traction (overhead electric trolley

Overhead lines

Overhead lines or overhead wires are used to transmit electrical energy to trams, trolleybuses or trains at a distance from the energy supply point...

) railroad ever built in the United States. Lowe’s partner and engineer was David J. Macpherson, a civil engineer graduate of Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

. The Mount Lowe Railway was a fulfillment of 19th century Pasadenans'

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

desire to have a scenic mountain railroad

Mountain railway

A mountain railway is a railway that ascends and descends a mountain slope that has a steep grade. Such railways can use a number of different technologies to overcome the steepness of the grade...

to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains

San Gabriel Mountains

The San Gabriel Mountains Range is located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert, with Interstate 5 to the west and Interstate 15 to the east...

.

The Railway opened on 4 July 1893, and consisted of nearly seven miles (11.2 km) of track starting in Altadena, California

Altadena, California

Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California...

at a station called Mountain Junction. The railway climbed the steep Lake Avenue and crossed the Poppyfields into the Rubio Canyon. This part of the trip was called the Mountain Division. At this juncture stood the Rubio Pavilion, a small 12-room hotel. From there the passengers transferred to a cable car funicular

Funicular

A funicular, also known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope; the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.-Operation:The basic principle of funicular...

which climbed the Great Incline to the top of the Echo Mountain promontory.

Atop Echo stood the magnificent 70-room Victorian hotel, the Echo Mountain House. Only a few hundred feet away stood the 40-room Echo Chalet which was ready for opening day. The complement of buildings on Echo included an astronomical observatory, car barns, dormitories and repair facilities, a casino and dance hall, and a menagerie of local fauna. Passengers could then transfer to another trolley line, the Alpine Division, which would take them to the upper terminus at Crystal Springs and Ye Alpine Tavern, a 22-room Swiss Chalet hospice with a complement of amenities from tennis courts, to wading pools, to mule rides.

For the seven years during which Lowe owned and operated the railway, it constantly ran into hard times. For one, its location was off the beaten path of the common traveler with little means of transportation up to the Altadena hillside. For another, fares did not cover the cost of continuous construction done on money borrowed at 10½% interest, and the opening day fare of $5.00 would not remain attractive to the greater public. Lowe went into receivership one or two times before losing the railway to Jared S. Torrance in 1899. The tiny railway was purchased at auction by a Mr. Valentine Payton of Danville, Illinois

Danville, Illinois

Danville is a city in Vermilion County, Illinois, United States. It is the principal city of the'Danville, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses all of Danville and Vermilion County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 32,467. It is the county seat of...

who, after only 14 months, sold it to Henry Huntington of the Pacific Electric Railway

Pacific Electric Railway

The Pacific Electric Railway , also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail, and buses...

in 1902. Huntington operated it as a fringe venture the rest of its days alongside his expansive Red Car system that covered the greater Los Angeles and Orange County areas.

A series of natural disasters ate away at the facilities, the first of which was a kitchen fire that destroyed the Echo Mountain House in 1900. A 1905 fire destroyed the rest of the Echo buildings except for the observatory and the astronomer's cabin. In 1909 a flash flood tore out the Rubio Pavilion. In 1928 a gale force wind toppled the observatory. And in 1936 an electrical fire wiped out the Tavern.

The Mount Lowe Railway was officially abandoned in 1938 after a horrendous rain washed most everything off the mountain sides. Today, the ruins of Mount Lowe Railway remain as a monument to a once-ever experienced enterprise. It was placed on the National Register of Historical Places on January 6, 1993.

Physical description

The railway terminal, called Mountain Junction, was located at the corner of Lake Avenue

Lake Avenue (Pasadena)

Lake Avenue is a major north-south feeder road for the Pasadena and Altadena communities in Los Angeles County, California. The road was developed in the mid 19th century and takes its name from a lake which was located at its southern most end known variously as Mission Lake, Kewen Lake, and...

and Calaveras Street in the unincorporated community of Altadena, Los Angeles County, California. The line was divided into 3 divisions: the Mountain Division, the Great Incline, and the Alpine Division. The mode of locomotion was electric traction railway, and a cable driven incline funicular

Funicular

. Electrical power for the railway consisted of several power generating stations equipped with either gas engines or Pelton wheel

Pelton wheel

The Pelton wheel is an impulse turbine which is among the most efficient types of water turbines. It was invented by Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to its weight like traditional overshot water wheel...

s, depending on the availability of mountain water.

Mountain Division

The Mountain Division began with a narrow gauge trolley

Tram

A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

that ascended Lake Avenue

Lake Avenue (Pasadena)

to a turnoff near Las Flores Street, along a private right-of-way

Right-of-way (railroad)

A right-of-way is a strip of land that is granted, through an easement or other mechanism, for transportation purposes, such as for a trail, driveway, rail line or highway. A right-of-way is reserved for the purposes of maintenance or expansion of existing services with the right-of-way...

through the Poppyfields district, and proceeded into Rubio Canyon to the foot of Echo Mountain

Echo Mountain

. Since this part of the line ran through the upper end of the residential community, it had station stops at Newkirk (Las Flores), Poppyfields, Hygeia (recovery hospital), and Roca before entering the Rubio Canyon. A transition bridge was installed to cross the Rubio Wash named Las Flores Bridge. At Rubio there was a large platform that spanned the canyon with an integrated 12-room hotel, the Rubio Pavilion. Other features at the pavilion were a series of stairways and bridges that ascended the canyon for viewing some eleven waterfalls, all of which were named.

Great Incline

From this platform passengers could transfer to a three-railed

Gantlet track

Gauntlet track or interlaced track is an arrangement in which railway tracks run parallel on a single track bed and are interlaced such that only one pair of rails may be used at a time. Since this requires only slightly more width than a single track, all four rails can be carried on the same...

funicular

Funicular

, the "Great Incline," and ascend Echo Mountain (elev. 3250 ft (990.6 m)). The Incline powering mechanism was designed by San Francisco cable car inventor Andrew Smith Hallidie

Andrew Smith Hallidie

Andrew Smith Hallidie was the promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco, USA. This was the world's first practical cable car system, and Hallidie is often therefore regarded as the inventor of the cable car and father of the present day San Francisco cable car system, although...

. It boasted grades as steep as 62% and as slight as 48%, and gained 1900 feet (579.1 m) in elevation. The funicular was the first of its kind built with three rails and featuring a four-railed passing track

Passing loop

A passing loop is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at a station, where trains or trams in opposing directions can pass each other. Trains/trams in the same direction can also overtake, providing that the signalling arrangement allows it...

at the half way point. A particular feature on the Incline was the Macpherson Trestle

Trestle

A trestle is a rigid frame used as a support, especially referring to a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by such frames. In the context of trestle bridges, each supporting frame is generally referred to as a bent...

named by Lowe for his engineer, David J. Macpherson, as was custom, and noted for its exceptional design in crossing a granite chasm over 150 ft deep.

Echo Mountain

Atop Echo Mountain there was the 40-room Echo Chalet which was ready for opening day. By November 1894 the stately, 80-room, Victorian-style Echo Mountain House had opened at the top of the Incline. The hotel featured two two-story wings adjoined by a grand lobby, and a dining room wing which reached to the rear overlooking Castle Canyon. The rest of Echo Mountain consisted of a working astronomical

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

observatory

Observatory

An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...

, which housed a 16 inches (406.4 mm) telescope

Telescope

A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

, dormitories, power generating stations and the "Incline Powerhouse" which powered the cables for the Great Incline funicular. The entire assembly of buildings was painted white and thus was referred to as "White City." Even the “opera box” cable cars were white and could be seen from afar ferrying up and down the hill.

Alpine Division

The third division, the Alpine Division, opened in 1896 and consisted of 3.5 miles (5.6 km) of narrow gauge track with 127 curves and 18 bridges and trestles. On this line there were three cars available for shuttling between Echo and the end-of-line, though only one car ever operated at a time due to electrical limitations, and there was no two-way traffic. The division spanned the broad face of Las Flores Canyon, rounded a promontory called the “Cape of Good Hope,” traveled deep into Millard Canyon, reappeared at the front face of the mountain, and eventually disappeared into Grand Canyon where it terminated at the foot of Mount Lowe. This location was called Crystal Springs (elev. 4995 ft (1,522.5 m)) for a stream of water that poured from the hillside, and it was here that the last of the hotels, the 12-room Swiss-style chalet, "Ye Alpine Tavern,” was built.

History

The Mount Lowe Railway was borne from a desire of the Pasadena Pioneers to have a scenic mountain railroad to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains. There was already established a trail to the peak of Mount Wilson, but that trip was arduous and ofttimes required more than a day to travel up and down. Several proposals were floated to establish some sort of mechanical transportation to the summits, but they all lacked funding.

David J. Macpherson (b. 1834, Ontario, Canada), a civil engineer from Cornell University

Cornell University

and a newcomer to Pasadena

Pasadena, California

(1885), proposed a steam driven cog wheel train to reach the crest via Mount Wilson. It wasn't until he was introduced to the millionaire Thaddeus S. C. Lowe

Thaddeus S. C. Lowe

(arrived in Pasadena 1890) that a fully funded plan could be put into action.

Incorporation

The two men incorporated the Pasadena & Mount Wilson Railroad Co. in 1891 with intentions to build the railroad to Mount Wilson

Mount Wilson

Mount Wilson can refer to several things:* Mount Wilson ** Mount Wilson Observatory* Mount Wilson, New South Wales, a mountain with a small hamlet in Australia* One of a list of peaks named Mount Wilson...

. Unable to obtain rights of way to Mt. Wilson, Macpherson suggested an alternate route, toward Oak Mountain

Mount Lowe (California)

, a high peak to the west of Mt. Wilson. He also suggested a change in the style of locomotion with the use of electric traction trolleys

Tram

. They hired a marvelous electrical engineer, Almarian W. Decker

Almarian Decker

Almarian William Decker was an American pioneer of electrical engineering involved in the early development of three-phase electrical power. In 1892 he was hired by H. H...

, who had contrived all the mathematical possibilities of an electric line and the funicular which would be required to ascend the Echo Mountain Promontory.

Mountain Division

Blasting into the Rubio Canyon began in September 1892, three months before the establishment of the San Gabriel Timberland Reserve (now Angeles National Forest

Angeles National Forest

The Angeles National Forest of the U.S. National Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles County, southern California. It was established on July 1, 1908, incorporating the first San Bernardino National Forest and parts of the former Santa Barbara and San Gabriel...

). A terminal was built at the corner of Calaveras and Lake Avenue in Altadena adjacent to the L. A. Terminal Railway station, and a narrow gauge line was laid up the 8% grade to a point near Las Flores Street where it turned eastward traversing the Poppyfields district and headed into the Rubio.

At the Rubio division terminus was built a broad platform to span the Canyon which included the Rubio Pavilion, a 12-room hotel, with dining facilities and other amenities. The pavilion also consisted of power generating facilities with the use of gas engines and Pelton waterwheels. Water was made available from reservoirs built in the canyon’s streams, though water was not always plentiful year round. As part of the entertainment experience, Lowe had a series of stairways and bridges built over the streams and waterfalls that emanated from the canyon. The eleven waterfalls were individually named and today exist as local historical landmarks.

The Great Incline

Work was begun on the Great Incline with such steep grades that no mule could be flogged enough into negotiating it. So materials were carried up on the back of laborers. Grading became a particular problem. While funiculars were usually considered to require four rails, two for the ascending car, and two for the descending car, there was not enough room to widen the grade to accommodate four rails. Over night the inventive Thaddeus Lowe came up with a plan to only use four rails where the cars pass each other and three rails on the upper and lower ends of the run, whereby the cars shared the center rail. The ingenious three-railed funicular not only fit, but it also reduced the amount of required materials. This three-railed design became a worldwide standard. (See Angels Flight

Angels Flight

Angels Flight is a landmark funicular railway in the Bunker Hill district of Downtown Los Angeles, California. It has two funicular cars, Sinai and Olivet ....

as a modern example.)

A great feat of engineering was realized with a trestle that was built to negotiate a 150 feet (45.7 m) deep granite chasm across 250 feet (76.2 m) of track on a 62% grade. The trestle was named, as was customary in railroad constructions, for the chief engineer, David Macpherson, thus, the Macpherson Trestle.

The Great Incline cable mechanism was engineered by Andrew Smith Hallidie

Andrew Smith Hallidie

of San Francisco cable car

San Francisco cable car system

The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, in the US sense of a tramway whose cars are pulled along by cables embedded in the street. It is an icon of San Francisco, California...

fame. It climbed 2200 feet (670.6 m) with approximately 6000 feet (1,828.8 m) of cable spliced into a complete loop which raised and lowered the cars of the Incline. At the Echo summit an incline powerhouse was erected to house the winding motor and gear works which powered the nine foot (2.74 m) diameter grip wheel. The wheel consisted of 72 clamping “finger” mechanisms which bit down on the cable creating a smooth, non-slip actuation of the winding cable.

The cable was a 1⅝ʺ (41.275 mm) steel cable spliced in two spots, one below each of the incline passenger cars and looped in a continuous strand around the grip wheel at the top of the incline and a tension wheel at the bottom.

The incline grade changed three times from a steep 62% grade at the base to a gentler 48% grade at the top, but the cars were designed to comfortably adjust to the differences in grade. The incline was also equipped with a safety cable which ran through an emergency braking mechanism under each car and provided an emergency stopping of the cars within 15 feet (4.6 m) should a failure of the main cable occur.

Echo Mountain

The Echo Mountain site was ready for opening day, July 4, 1893, with the 40-room "Echo Chalet." By November 1894 the 80-room Victorian "Echo Mountain House" was completed as a luxury facility to rival the Hotel Del Coronado

Hotel del Coronado

Hotel del Coronado is a beachfront luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort...

in San Diego

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

.

Lowe also installed a 16 inches (406.4 mm) telescope and observatory on Echo, as he was a patron of the astronomical arts. He even sought to have the Mount Lowe Railway considered the astronomical center of the San Gabriels. He was even able to enlist astronomer Dr. Lewis Swift, whose reputation preceded him. Given the heavens not yet being disturbed by city lights, Swift was able to discover some 95 new nebulae from the Echo vantage point. ("It could be noted that in an earlier 1892 plan, Charles William Eliot

Charles William Eliot

Charles William Eliot was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university...

President of Harvard University sought to have a 40 inches (1,016 mm) telescope put on Mt. Wilson. Lowe offered the use of his new Mount Wilson Railroad to transport the lenses up. However, the project benefactor died without leaving a trust, and the whole plan failed, and of course Lowe's train didn't end up going to Mt. Wilson either").
Prof. Lowe’s success was greatly drawn from his nationally renowned process of generating large amounts of hydrogen gas (see water gas

Water gas

Water gas is a synthesis gas, containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen. It is a useful product but requires careful handling because of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. The gas is made by passing steam over a red-hot hydrocarbon fuel such as coke:...

). He had built a gas plant in Pasadena and had piped the gas some eight miles (13 km) to the top of Echo where there was a storage container seen in several earlier photographs. The technology, mainly used for heating and lighting, was soon replaced by electricity.

Echo Mountain also sported a menagerie (zoo) which housed several species of local fauna: lynxes, raccoons, snakes, squirrels, and even a black bear. Alongside the zoo was a dormitory and shop facility for maintenance of the trains.

Lowe purchased a three million candlepower

Candlepower

Candlepower is a now-obsolete unit which was used to express levels of light intensity in terms of the light emitted by a candle of specific size and constituents...

searchlight

Searchlight

A searchlight is an apparatus that combines a bright light source with some form of curved reflector or other optics to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direction, usually constructed so that it can be swiveled about.-Military use:The Royal Navy used...

from the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. The light was installed on Echo in 1894. So powerful was the light, that a claim by Lowe's publicist, George Wharton James, stated that he could read a newspaper by the beam of the light coming through his hotel window on Catalina Island

Santa Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...

. Exaggeration or not, the beam from the light did have a 35 miles (56.3 km) projection. Residents announcing their birthdays could have the light shone on their homes in the evening. It was also known to stir up a corral of horses, invade lovers’ privacy, and interrupt an evening’s revival meeting. By the 1930s the light was considered a public nuisance and was shut off permanently.

The Alpine Division

A third division the Alpine Division was begun in 1894 and took a lengthy stretch of narrow gauge track across three canyons to the foot of Mount Lowe

Mount Lowe (California)

(formerly Oak Mountain). The line ran from alongside the incline landing where passengers could transfer directly to the next trolley. There were three trains available on this line, but the limited electrical power only allowed one at a time to travel. The line set out across the broad Las Flores Canyon which gave a tremendous panorama of the Los Angeles area below. At one point a tall trestle was required to bridge a broad and deep chasm with a bridge so named High Bridge.

At the ridge which separates Las Flores Canyon from Millard Canyon, the right of way was cut around a bluff named Cape of Good Hope. On the back side of the bluff was a section of straight track labeled “longest straight track 225 ft [68.6 m].” From there the rails lead deep into Millard Canyon before making a complete turnabout at Horseshoe Curve and heading back to the face of the mountain. Once again overlooking the valley, the train made a broad sweep around Circular Bridge. The design of the bridge, more at a trestle, was to allow the trolley to negotiate a 12 feet (3.7 m) switch back, over 500 feet (152.4 m) of track, at a 4% grade in a 340° turn. The wooden structure resembled a section of roller coaster offering an awesome sight over the side of the car looking almost 100 feet (30.5 m) straight down.
From the switchback the train made a return trip into Millard Canyon. At the transition point of Millard and Grand Canyons, construction was met by a large granite crag that required 8 months of dynamiting and mucking to allow just enough passage for the narrow gauge cars. The site was named Granite Gate at 4072 feet (1,241.1 m) in elevation. The last stretch of track reached deep into Grand Canyon on a gentle grade that ended up at the foot of Mt. Lowe. There in a location called Crystal Springs, Lowe built a 12-room, Swiss chalet styled hotel named “Ye Alpine Tavern.” It was also flanked by cottages and tent cabins to augment its occupancy. The Tavern boasted several amenities, such as a wading pool, tennis courts, mule rides, gift shop, restaurant, and a silver fox farm.

This spot marked the end of the line, nearly 7 miles (11.2 km) from its starting point at Mountain Junction.

Visitors

The Mount Lowe Railway opened officially on July 4, 1893. Folks amassed themselves at the remote Mountain Junction. Up to this point there was only one means of public transportation from the valleys below to the hillside community of Altadena. It was the Los Angeles Terminal Railway

Los Angeles Terminal Railway

The Los Angeles Terminal Railway, earlier known as the Pasadena Railway, and unofficially as the Altadena Railway, was a small terminal railroad line that was constructed between Altadena and Pasadena, California in the late 1880s. It was a byproduct of a land boom period and a victim of the land...

which by this time was running from Terminal Island in San Pedro to Mountain Junction. The trains ran twice a day and, at that, very irregularly, so the only sure means of getting to Altadena on time was by your own horse and buggy. This lack of transportation coupled with Prof. Lowe’s inability to establish any at all would be in part the downfall of the railway.

Nevertheless, over its 45 years of existence it is estimated that some 3 million people had ridden the railway, many coming from all parts of the country and the world. In its own inimitable way, it was a Disneyland of the day. A publication which emanated from the Tavern daily was the Echo, a preprinted newspaper with a blank page that had the names and home states of the daily arrivals surprinted. The four page tabloid had three pages of biographical information on the railroad and other announcements of daily events.

At the top of the incline was perched Charles Lawrence, the official photographer, on a special scaffold from which he would take pictures of the arriving visitors. For 25 cents visitors could purchase a souvenir photo of their arrival on the incline car, with everyone else aboard, of course. George Wharton James, Lowe’s publicist, had his own publication which touted the railway in its conception, construction and operation.

On Mount Echo were installed megaphones, called “echophones” which visitors could use to bellow into the back canyons and receive a number of echoes. The “sweet spot” where the most repeaters could be heard had at least nine reverberations of anything that was shouted loud enough. The study of the sweet spot has even been used as boy scout projects.

Along the way in Millard Canyon, a special station stop was made at Dawn Station above the Dawn Mines, an old gold mining operation. The mines were deep in the canyon and visitors stopping off to see the digs spent an exorbitant amount of time getting back to the train. A false adit was dug just a hundred feet below the track to trick people into thinking they had visited the mine and were shortly ready to return to the train.

Part of the charm around the Mt. Lowe sites was the grand display of nature and hiking trails, plus a mule ride that took guests around a trail referred to as the Mount Lowe Eight. The trail made a large figure eight traverse of Mt. Lowe and Mount Echo starting and ending at the Alpine Tavern without ever crossing the same terrain twice.

In 1922 Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...

visited the Mount Lowe Railway and returned with a Hollywood filming crew who made a silent film documentary of the trip with the camera mounted on the various cars, including the Great Incline. 618 feet (188.4 m) of this historic film is available at the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

Troubled times

In all there were four hotels along the line, but the extent of the construction, and the poor patronage had stretched Lowe to his limit. By 1898 the railroad fell into receivership under Jared Sidney Torrance

Jared Sidney Torrance

Jared Sidney Torrance was an American real estate developer, best known as the founder of Torrance in southwest Los Angeles County, California.-Southern California:...

, founder of Torrance, California

Torrance, California

Torrance is a city incorporated in 1921 and located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Torrance has of shore-front beaches on the Pacific Ocean, quieter and less well-known by tourists than others on the Santa Monica Bay, such as those of neighboring...

. Both men applied to the government for rights of way to the top of Mt. Lowe. The government realized that the whole railroad was on Federal property (vis-à-vis the San Gabriel Timberland Reserve

San Gabriel Timberland Reserve

The San Gabriel Timberland Reserve was the first federal reserve in the state of California. It was established on December 20, 1892 by proclamation order of President Benjamin Harrison and consisted of extending from Pacoima to Cajon Pass in Southern California. The San Gabriel Timberland Reserve...

) and demanded that a proper lease be taken out on the properties. Having reviewed Lowe's standing with the railway, Congress awarded the receivership to Torrance in 1899, and Lowe was left with only the title to the observatory. It was at this time that the railway was reorganized and incorporated as the Mount Lowe Railway. The railway was sold at auction to a Mr. Valentine Peyton of Danville, Illinois

Danville, Illinois

, who personally came to California to run the operation.

Disasters strike

In 1900 the Echo Mountain House burned down. It was grossly underinsured and was never rebuilt. Later the astronomer Dr. Swift went blind and was forced to leave his post at the observatory. A second astronomer was hired to oversee the observatory, Prof. Edgar Lucien Larkin (1847–1925). Though he was not as prominent as Prof. Swift, he did stay with the Mount Lowe Observatory until his sudden death in 1925. Disenchanted, Peyton sold the railway to the Huntington interest after which it became part of the Pacific Electric Railway

Pacific Electric Railway

The Pacific Electric Railway , also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail, and buses...

(PE), of the famed Los Angeles Red Car system.

Part of the P&E improvements included a "casino" on Echo Mountain. The building shows up in some rare photos and was described as a dance hall, not a gambling facility. It is believed by most historians that the casino was built only a few months before the fire of 1905. The fire was started when a forceful wind blew the roof from the casino onto the power generating station across the track, and set a fire that razed everything on Echo except the observatory and the astronomer's cabin. The only part of the Echo operation that was restored was the Incline Powerhouse in 1906. Other improvements were made to the railway, such as the replacement of rock pile footings under each trestle with reinforced concrete pilings.

In 1909, an unseasonable electrical storm and flash flood tore out the Rubio Pavilion and buried one of the caretakers’ children in the mud. The injured parents spent years in the hospital recuperating from the devastation that left them trapped in the rubble of the Pavilion. Three of the children, who knew how to actuate the incline cars, escaped to the top of the incline.

In 1928 a gale force wind blew down the observatory. Its curator at the time was Mt. Lowe photographer Charles Lawrence, who escaped the collapse within an inch of his life. Fortunately he had the foresight to pack up the expensive lens pieces ahead of time. The instrument has been reinstalled at Santa Clara University as a fine instructional piece.

In 1925 a large block brick annex was added to the Tavern and it was renamed "Mount Lowe Tavern." In September 1936 the tavern burned to the ground from an electrical fire. The P&E was officially out of business, but left train operators on the line, so as not to abandon the railway. Though there was a slight consideration to rebuild, lack of water, poor area for relocation, and the financial burden of construction and insurance left the P&E all but giving up on the Mount Lowe Railway.

In 1937, the Railroad Booster's Club, enthusiasts of the P&E Railroad, requested a final paid excursion on the line for photos and memorabilia. In 1938 a three-day deluge of biblical proportions wiped out everything left of the railway and stranded the caretakers on Echo for 10 days. After that the railway was officially abandoned.

Dismantling

The Red Car line ran into Altadena until 1941. At the onset of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the dismantling of the Mount Lowe Railway was contracted to a scrapper who stripped the railway of all salvageable materials. In 1959 the Forestry service began a rampage on the leftover shells of the buildings, dynamiting everything into history as "hazardous nuisances." In 1962 the Incline Powerhouse was dynamited, but the gear mechanism was placed as a monument to the enterprise.

Historical landmark

In 1992 a committee of the Pacific Railroad Society, successors to the Railroad Boosters, began a project of "revealment" which, under the supervision of Mike McIntyre, Angeles National Forest archaeologist, sought to uncover the ruins of Echo Mountain. On January 6, 1993, the Mount Lowe Railway was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Forestry Service dedicated a block of land for the monument that would encompass all the artifacts from the railroad. On July 4, 1993, a centennial celebration was held on Mount Echo, and a separate celebration was held on Macpherson Parkway in the Poppyfields district. Today care of the artifacts and other restorative projects are being carried out by the Scenic Mount Lowe Railway Historical Committee under the leadership of Brian Marcroft and John Harrigan. The committee has become a group of uniformed forestry volunteers who continue to work closely with the forestry headquarters in Arcadia, California.
In 2005 Mrs. Stacey Camp began an archaeological dig on a section of Mount Echo where there once stood a barrack for workers. The dig is part of Mrs. Camp's Doctoral thesis and has come about by a grant from Stanford University and is also being coordinated with the Forestry Service.

Online publications

Man, Mountain and Monument by Mike Manning

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Physical description

Mountain Division

Great Incline

Echo Mountain

Alpine Division

History

Incorporation

Mountain Division

The Great Incline

Echo Mountain

The Alpine Division

Visitors

Troubled times

Disasters strike

Dismantling

Historical landmark

Online publications

See also

External links