Follow
Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Pasadena, California.
Pasadena was incorporated on June 19, 1886, becoming one of the first cities to be incorporated in what is now Los Angeles County, following the city of Los Angeles (April 4, 1850). It is one of the primary cultural centers of the San Gabriel Valley.
The city is known for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade.
Official Website
History
Prior to the 1890s, the mail was delivered to the Indiana Colony via Los Angeles. In an attempt to obtain their own post office, the Colony needed to change its name to something the Postmaster General considered appropriate. To this end the town fathers put three names up to a vote. The first was "Indianola," the second was "Granada," in keeping with the area's Spanish heritage. The third name was proposed by Dr. Thomas Elliott, who had contacted a missionary friend in Michigan who had worked with the Minnesota Chippewa Native Americans, although the Chippewa language had no ties to Southern California. He submitted four names for translation: "Crown of the Valley," "Key of the Valley," "Valley of the Valley," and "Hill of the Valley." All of the translations ended in "pa-sa-de-na," meaning "of the valley." Due to its euphonious nature, Pasadena was chosen, put to a vote, and accepted, though maps from the Wheeler Survey of 1878 show the names "Indiana Colony" and "Pasadena" in the same location. In March 1886, Pasadena became the second incorporated municipality, after the city of Los Angeles, in Los Angeles County.
In 1892, John H. Burnett of Galveston, Texas, visited Pasadena. After returning home, Burnett plotted a town along two bayous, with its similar lush vegetation, naming it Pasadena, after the California city.
The popularity of the region drew people from across the country, and Pasadena eventually became a stop on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which led to an explosion in growth. From the real estate boom of the 1880s until the Great Depression, as great tourist hotels were developed in the city, Pasadena became a winter resort for wealthy Easterners, spurring the development of new neighborhoods and business districts, and increased road and transit connections with Los Angeles, culminating with the opening of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, California's first freeway. By 1940, Pasadena had become the eighth largest city in California and was considered by many to be a twin city to Los Angeles.
The first of the great hotels to be established in Pasadena was the Raymond (1886) atop Bacon Hill, renamed Raymond Hill after construction. The original Mansard Victorian 200 room facility burned down on Easter morning of 1895 and was not rebuilt until 1903. It was razed during the Great Depression to make way for residential development. The Maryland Hotel existed from the early 1900s and was demolished in 1934. (Note: On April 27, 1935, Mary Stubbs Warner sailed from New York City to San Francisco and listed her home as The Maryland Hotel in Pasadena, California. This demolition date should be verified.) The world-famous Mount Lowe Railway and associated mountain hotels shut down four years later due to fire damage. Three hotel structures have survived, the Green Hotel (a co-op since 1926), the Vista Del Arroyo (now used as a Federal courthouse), and a residential tower of the Maryland at 80 North Euclid Avenue (a co-op since 1953).
The American Craftsman era in art and design is exceptionally well represented in Pasadena. In architecture Greene and Greene, the Green Brothers firm, developed the style with many residences still existing. Two examples of their Ultimate bungalow versions are the masterpiece Gamble House (public tours), and the Robert R. Blacker House (private). Both are designated California Historical Landmarks and on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Adolphus Busch was the co-founder of Anheuser-Busch, brewer of Budweiser beer. The wealthy easterner took full advantage of the area's mild climate and established the first of a series of Busch Gardens here. The first Busch Gardens opened in 1905 and closed to the public in 1937. During its time, it was one of the major tourist attractions in the Los Angeles area and offered many unique gardens and fairyland landscapes and structures. It was used as a location for several Hollywood motion pictures. After 1937 and the Second World War, much of the land was developed for homes. When Busch died at his Pasadena estate, his wife generously offered the home to the City of Pasadena, an offer the city inexplicably refused. Close inspection of the location can still reveal many of the original river rock walls and structures of the gardens.
The Second World War proved to be a boom to Pasadena as Southern California became a major staging area for the Pacific War. High tech manufacturing and scientific companies made the city their home, a trend which continued in the decades following the war, notably with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Tetra Tech and Ameron International.
In the 1950s, Pasadena saw a steady influx of people from the Southern United States, especially African-Americans from Texas and Louisiana. Pasadena also began hosting a large immigrant community, particularly from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Armenia.
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts founded in 1884 in New York, opened its Pasadena campus in 1974. However, in 2001 the conservatory moved from Pasadena to Hollywood. Training actors for the stage in a two-year program, the conservatory was the first school in the United States to offer professional education in the field of acting. Point Loma Nazarene University was located in Pasadena for many years before moving to San Diego County, and held both the names of Pasadena University and Pasadena College.
In 1969, the Pasadena Unified School District was desegregated, though the issue would continue to be fought in court for a decade. A year later, the 210 Freeway was built along a newly chosen route. The freeway's construction was controversial, as it caused the demolition of over a thousand homes, many historic, and many claimed that the route was designed to cut off the city's less wealthy neighborhoods.
The situation did not improve. Downtown Pasadena became dangerous in some parts and deserted in others, and incidences of murder and arson skyrocketed. Old Pasadena faced destruction as plans for new high-rise developments were drawn up, though they were mostly stopped by increasingly active preservation advocates. Pasadena suffered demographically as many residents decamped for the nearby suburbs or the Inland Empire, causing an overall decrease in population. Despite these setbacks, many local artists and hipsters moved in to take advantage of low property values. Their legacy can be seen today in the Doo Dah Parade which began in 1976.
The 1970s also saw the meteoric rise of gang violence in Pasadena, a trend which culminated with the 1993 Halloween Massacre, wherein three teenagers were murdered by members of the Bloods and three more were wounded. This led the Pasadena Police Department to crack down far more heavily on gang activity, which receded in the mid-1990s.
In the early 2000s, several civic beautification campaigns began in earnest and many traditionally impoverished neighborhoods began gentrifying. The 2003 opening of the Los Angeles County Metro's Gold Line reopened Pasadena for rail rapid transit for the first time since 1951, and high-density condominiums began to pop up in the major business districts, leading to a major population increase. However, Pasadena's development has stalled due to the late 2000s Recession, although much needed Seismic retrofitting was completed on the City Hall building in summer 2007. It was closed in July 2004 because of safety concerns and construction began in March 2005.