History
In 1901, Henry E. Huntington (nephew and heir to the fortune of Southern Pacific Railroad founder Collis P. Huntington) began the Pacific Electric Railway as a way to develop the lands surrounding Los Angeles. The main trunk line eastwards into the San Gabriel Valley passed to the south of Pasadena (with branch lines peeling off), skirting the line of hills just south of the San Gabriel Mountains. Huntington chose for himself a large tract of land on one of these hills (which on a clear day has a view of the ocean, 22 miles (35 km) distant). When automobile ownership rose in Southern California, this main line was converted into a wide divided highway, with four tracks running down the median. In 1925, Pacific Electric began converting its train lines into bus routes, a process that culminated in 1953, when the bulk of its routes were closed.
Read more about this topic: Huntington Drive
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“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)
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)