History
For geologic epochs the river ran freely across arid grasslands and through riparian zones and extensive marshes to the Pacific Ocean, flooding in the winter and spring then running nearly dry in the summer and fall. Once out of the mountains, the river's course would change frequently with every heavy inundation. Sometimes, the river would change course to run into the Los Angeles River in the west, and sometimes the Santa Ana River's floodwaters would travel westwards into the San Gabriel from Santa Ana Canyon.
The San Gabriel River basin was historically part of the homeland, for over 8,000 years, of the Tongva—Gabrieleño Native American people. Together with the Los Angeles and Santa Ana Rivers, the San Gabriel River provided sustenance for thousands of members of this powerful coastal tribe whose territory extended across the entire Los Angeles basin, San Fernando Valley, and Channel Islands. The Tongva had permanent settlements and temporary hunting and foraging camps in their territory.
In 1771, the Spanish invaded and founded Mission San Gabriel Arcángel which was originally built on the banks of the Rio Hondo, a tributary of the San Gabriel River in the Whittier Narrows, in 1771. After being flooded in 1776 it was relocated to the location, now in the present day City of San Gabriel. The river's Spanish name is from the mission's. The Spanish colonizers also renamed the Tongva people, as the Gabrieleño Mission Indians after they were relocated to the mission.
After California was admitted to the United States in 1850, the Pueblo de Los Angeles founded in 1781, grew into the City of Los Angeles. In this period, agriculture and ranching, on the lands of the former Spanish and Mexican land grant Ranchos, were the primary economy of the San Gabriel River basin. When the railroads arrived, and especially after the Los Angeles Aqueduct began service in 1913, the development booms in the basin expanded greatly, creating many of the towns and cities that now line the San Gabriel River. Some were named after their founders and others, such as Azusa, derived from the location's Tongva language settlement placename, although the contemporary motto of that city is "everything from 'A' to 'Z' in the 'USA'."
Read more about this topic: San Gabriel River (California)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)