348 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



and Villa streets, and between El Molino and Lake Avenues, and a few 

 acres east of Lake Avenue along where the Santa Fe railroad now runs. It 

 was bought in 1880 by C. T. Hopkins of San Francisco, the founder and 

 president of the California Insurance company of that city. He employed 

 C. C. Brown to manage the property and plant it with trees and vines, a 

 large proportion of the land being devoted to olive trees — hence the name. 

 Olive wood station of the Santa Fe railroad is on this tract ; and in 1886-87 

 a strong effort was made to establish a permanent business and trading 

 center here ; but it failed at last, leaving several empty store-rooms as 

 cenotaphs to the dead "boom." In 1894 three of these store buildings 

 were sold and moved up to Colorado street east of Marengo Avenue. 



Linda Vista Tract. — In 1883 Prof. J. D. Yocum purchased a body 

 of wild land on the west bank of the Arroyo Seco which had long been 

 known as " Indian flat," where a few families of native Mexicans lived in 

 their miserable shiftless and thriftless way. This tract extended from the 

 foot of Jumbo Knob opposite Reservoir hill up to the Verdugo hills near 

 Devil's Gate, and comprised arroyo bottom and bluff lands, mesa land and 

 mountain land, all densely covered with greasewood and other native chap. 

 paral growths. It was a part of the original Rancho San Rafael. Mr. 

 Yocum cleared the land, developed water upon it, opened streets, planted 

 orchards, and made his home there ; and eventually sold portions of it to 

 other parties who likewise made homes there. The West Pasadena street 

 railway, with its $8,000 suspension bridge across the arroyo, was built and 

 operated several years to connect Linda Vista with Pasadena ; but it failed 

 to pay expenses, was finally sold for debt, torn up, and partly used in con- 

 structing the Mt. Lowe Electric railroad. 



Las Casitas Tract. — The land bearing this name is a small bench 

 or plateau forming a tongue between the Arroyo Seco and Millard canyon 

 at their confluence. It was first taken as a 160-acre homestead claim in 

 1875 by J. H. Gifford, afterward son-in-law to John W. Wilson ; and about 

 1880, Mr. Wilson filed a claim on water in Negro canyon and made a small 

 ditch to bring water around from the canyon to Giflford's homestead house, 

 who with his young wife then lived there. Gifford afterward sold his land 

 to Thomas Banbury.* Banbury traded the land to Preston Hollingsworth ; 

 he sold it to John L. Hartwell, who, assisted by his brother Calvin, piped the 

 water from Negro canyon down to it. Then in 1885-86 Hartwell sold it to 

 James Cambell, H. N. Rust and a Mr. Doyle, and they commenced making 

 further improvements there. Next, John R. Niles bought out the Rust and 

 Doyle interests, and he with Cambell laid it out in lots, graded streets, 

 piped water through them, named it Las Casitas, and put it on the market. 

 The name is Spanish — La Casa, the home ; Las Casitas, the little homes. 

 But Mr. Niles became deranged and had to be sent away to the insane 

 asylum ; this greatly embarrassed the business of giving titles to the lots, 



