Mount Wilson Toll Road

Mount Wilson Toll Road

The Mount Wilson Toll Road (1891–1936) is a historic roadway which ascended Mount Wilson via a vehicular passable road from the base of the foothills in Altadena. It was accessible from Pasadena via Santa Anita Avenue which drove right to the front porch of the toll house. The road is still accessible to non-motorized traffic (hikers, bicyclists, and horses) by way of Eaton Canyon (either from the Nature Center entrance, or an access gate on Pinecrest Drive, just off Altadena Drive in Altadena). Segments of it have been closed at various times due to landslides. A 2005 landslide destroyed 50 yards of the road, but it has since been rebuilt and reopened.

Mount Wilson had always been active with human passage starting from the days of the local Indians. It was Benjamin Davis Wilson who established a proper trail to the summit of Mt. Wilson from Sierra Madre through the Little Santa Anita Canyon.

Read more about Mount Wilson Toll Road:  Inception of Toll Road, The Mt. Wilson Observatories, In Its Closing Years

Famous quotes containing the words mount, wilson, toll and/or road:

    As every pool reflects the image of the sun, so every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the supreme Good. The universe is perforated by a million channels for his activity. All things mount and mount.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The competent leader of men cares little for the niceties of other peoples’ characters: he cares much—everything—for the exterior uses to which they may be put.... These are men to be moved. How should he move them? He supplies the power; others simply the materials on which that power operates.
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
    one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
    one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
    one is at the toll gate collecting,
    one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
    one is straddling a cello in Russia....
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
    William Blake (1757–1827)