History
Eaton Canyon is in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Originally called "El Precipicio" by the Spanish settlers because of its steep gorges, the canyon falls under several governmental jurisdictions.
Benjamin Eaton was hired by Don Benito Wilson to bring water to the Fair Oaks Ranch. In August 1877, naturalist John Muir set out from Pasadena for an expedition into the San Gabriels. He writes: "On the first day of my excursion I went only as far as the mouth of Eaton Canyon, because the heat was oppressive, and a pair of new shoes were chafing my feet to such an extent that walking began to be painful."
On October 27, 1993, the floor of Eaton Canyon, along with 118 surrounding homes, was devastated by a wildfire.
On August 10, 2010, a small 1-acre (4,000 m2) brush fire broke out in the canyon, but was soon put out by fire engines and helicopters.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)