It was Teddy Roosevelt who later change the name to the Angeles National Forest - the country’s second National Forest after Yosemite.Īfter Pickens got money for the water and the trees, he then sold the land. In response to his actions and other similar endeavors, President Benjamin Harrison established the San Gabriel Timberland Reserve - a precursor to the National Forest - to prevent all logging of the mountains. Picken’s destruction of the forest did not go unnoticed. All later attempts at reforesting the mountainside have failed. In just ten years, the old forest - once the glory of the valley - was gone forever. He chopped down the valley’s only Old Growth Forest - five square miles of Big Cone Douglas Fur trees, and sold the wood in Los Angeles as fuel.
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Next, he filed a claim for the logging rights. First, he filed a claim for the valley’s only major water source, forcing others to pay him for the water rights. Known as “Dad”, Pickens was a hot-tempered, anti-social misanthrope who sought to exploit the land for money. He built a small, ten-foot by fourteen-foot cabin at the top of the canyon that now bears his name, near the top of what was later called Brigg’s Avenue. He chose the most visible water source as his home. In 1871, a Civil War veteran named Colonel Theodore Pickens became the first U.S. This did not, however, include the Mexican Land Grants which the government had put up for sale. The Homestead Act, which President Lincoln had signed into law, enabled veterans to claim land or buy it for little money on the condition they improved it. Many Civil War veterans who had been to California for the 1849 Gold Rush, returned after the war to start a new life. Over the years sanitariums would be built and thousands would flock here to find relief from asthma, emphysema, tuberculosis, bronchitis, and other chronic lung ailments. The combination of high altitude and dry, moderate temperatures proved an ideal climate for those suffering with lung disease. He lived in the Verdugo Woodlands near what is today Glendale Community College - and used the Crescenta-Canada valley for cattle grazing.īut the valley had one thing to attract people from the eastern states: the air quality. It was Coronel who named it "La Canada", meaning a ‘glen between mountain ranges’.īut like Verdugo before him, he too considered it uninhabitable. A Los Angeles schoolteacher named Ignacio Coronel had been given the land in 1843 as payment for his service in the Spanish army. There were so few visible water sources and the steep terrain was marred by huge rocks and boulders. They later justified their action claiming, “Only bees would live up there.”Īlthough the Tongva Indians - also known as the GABRIELENO Indians - once had a village in the area east of Montrose, the first person to ever claim ownership of the land, Don Jose Maria Verdugo, considered it “uninhabitable”. They marked off only 6500 acres of land, omitting some of the most valuable real estate in the area because didn’t want to hike up the valley’s steep grade. When surveyors Jonathan Scott and Benjamin Hayes entered Rancho La Canada in 1858 they spent much of their time killing rattle snakes - as many as ten a day per surveyor. This included the large tract of land north of Glendale called Rancho La Canada. Flint.Īfter California became a state in 1850 the new government was required to investigate all Mexican land claims.
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There are three men most responsible for the development of the Crescenta-Canada Valley: Dr. The curved streets of Montrose were intended to form the pedals of a rose?
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Movie stars were drawn to La Crescenta's sanitariums to overcome alcohol and drug addictions? In the 1930s, La Crescenta was the scene of one of largest Nazi rallies in America? The streets of Flintridge were originally horse trails made by its founder, Senator Frank Flint? La Crescenta's founder also pioneered California's fruit industry? The Verdugo Hills Golf Course was once the site of a Japanese Internment camp? The first settler here chopped down the valley's only old growth forest?
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The Crescenta-Canada Valley once boasted the healthiest air quality in the world?