398 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



there a burro trail up the great dividing ridge between Las Flores and Mil- 

 lard canyons to the top of the range. There was a foot trail up this route, 

 and Dr. B. A. Wright, who then owned the I^as Flores house, followed it 

 up on horseback to a point nearl)^ or quite as high as Echo Mountain, just 

 to test the feasibility of the plan. But the sanitarium scheme failed, and this 

 mountain bridle road plan died with it. Another scheme was to make a 

 bridle road up around Millard Falls and on into what is now called Grand 

 canyon — thence up over the dividing ridge now called the "Mount Lowe 

 saddle " — thence down across Grand Basin to the Eaton Canyon pass, and 

 thence on to Wilson's peak. This would have made an intramontane trip 

 excelling in picturesque beauty and grandeur the old Wilson Trail and the 

 Switzer Trail ; and it was designed to be worked as an adjunct to the 

 Painter Hotel, for the benefit of its winter tourist guests. The parties inter- 

 ested in it were A. J. Painter, Calvin Hartwell, E. W. Giddings, E- W. Gid- 

 dings. Byron O. Clark.* However, the project was never carried through; yet 

 partly under its inspiration a good pack-trail was made clear up into Grand 

 canyon, for the uses of water development work in the upper sources of Mil- 

 lard canyon. There was talk of making a wagon road clear to Wilson's peak 

 by this route ; but that was a preposterous idea, for it would have cost 

 $100,000 to make a road of passage there for four-wheeled vehicles. 



It was in 1885 that C. P. Switzer, a carpenter from Eos Angeles, con- 

 structed his trail up the Arroyo Seco canyon to a romantic place of cabins 

 and tents, waterpools and falls, baths, etc., known to fame for a few years as 

 " Switzer 's Camp." But this was only a sort of half-way house to any part 

 of the mountain top, and from here there were only difficult footpaths or 

 burro trails to Mount Disappointment, Strawberry peak, and other lofty 

 summits, and to Barley Flats. 



In 1886 Owen and Jason Brown, sons of the famous "Old John 

 Brown," commenced constructing a bridle road from their mountain home- 

 stead above Eas Casitas to a point at the top of the front range, which they 

 christened " Brown's peak." After building about two miles of their road 

 they had to give it up for want of funds ; and Owen's death in January, 

 1889, totally ended the project. 



Yet, in spite of all these different schemes, Wilson's Peak still had the 

 call.f People mostly seemed to think and talk as if that was the only place 



*As early as 1.SS3-84, Byron O. Clark and his brother-in-law, H. C. Kellogg, a civil engineer, while 

 prospecting and surveying for mountain springs to supply the Painter & Ball tract, noticed the fine 

 parks of oak timber on the west slopes of Oak Mountain (now called Mt. Lowe), and thev applied to 

 Washington for privilege to survey it at their own cost and buy a section of it as timber land. They got 

 answer that it had been officially reported and recorded as "unsurveyable." They tried further to get 

 it. but without success. Mr. Kellogg at that time projected levels and grades and'detours for a road to 

 Wilson's Peak by the Millard canyon route ; and Clark planned for a landscape paradise and half-way 

 statioji in the .same timber .slopes where the Alpine Club house and Crystal Springs station of Mt. Lowe 

 Railroad are now located. H. C. Kellogg is now [1S94] county surveyor of Orange county. Clark resides 

 at Linda Vista, Pasadena. 



f'The Signal Peak Plotel Co. has made arrangements with Mr. Fox. Abbot Kinney and Col. Mayberrv 

 for right-of-way acro.ss their mountain .side lands ; and on Wednesday Clarence Martin and Mr. Rockwood 

 located the route for their new horseback road to the mountain top," nic.— Union, June 11, 1886. 



