DIVISION FIVE — NAMES. 



337 



in California with water con- 

 veyed in iron pipes ready 

 for use at each colony set- 

 tler's own door. Before that 

 only open ditches had been 

 used, or wooden pipes. This 

 scheme was projected and 

 superintended by Mr. Wil- 

 son's son-in-law, J. DeBarth 

 Shorb, who had done the 

 first iron piping of water for 

 irrigation purposes ever done 

 in California, at Camulos in 

 1864, while he was superin- 

 tendent of the oil works 

 started there by Col. Thomas 

 Scott, the great railroad king 

 of that time. And Mr. Shorb 

 further extended and devel- 

 oped the same idea in the 

 Alhambra and the Pasadena- 

 Lake-Vineyard colony tracts. 

 The Alhambra tract was school land without water, and Mr. Wilson bought 

 it from the State for $2.50 per acre. It was commonly deemed worth- 

 less, but the water-piping scheme jumped it at once into great value and 

 ready sale — and a large addition was soon made to the original colony 

 tract. 



In 1876 Mr. Wilson and Mr. Shorb projected the "Lake Vineyard 

 Land and Water Company," and laid out 2,500 acres* into 5- and lo-acre 

 lots, east of Fair Oaks Avenue, and piped water to the lots from the reservoir 

 (now known as No. i) at the end of the original Wilson and Griffin ditch. 

 This land was sold at first for $55 per acre ; but very soon the price advanced 

 to $65, $75, $80, $100 per acre. In 1877 an association called the Mutual 

 Orchard Company bought 200 acres from the east part of this Lake Vine- 

 yard Company, and planted on it 14,000 orange trees, the largest orange 

 orchard in the world. This was an Oakland, Cal., company. 



March 11, 1878, Mr. Wilson died, at his Lake Vineyard home place, in 

 the 67th year of his age. He had done more to develop and improve and 

 open up for American settlement the region now known as Pasadenaland 

 than any other man before or since his time ; and that is why there are so 

 many different points and objects hereabouts that bear his name. 



HON. B. D. WILSON. 



*It was 1,500 acres at first, and then Mr. Wilson repurchased i.ooo acres from the Grogan tract. 

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