442 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



ing thereto a four-foot wide horse trail. * * It is further proposed to 

 put up a hotel in the park, and eventually to run a cog-wheel railroad to it 

 from Pasadena." 



Another mention of this scheme occurs in the Valley Union of Ma}' i6, 

 which says : 



"It is the plan of the company to make as soon as practicable a new 

 trail by way of Katon canyon, so as to start up directl}' from Pasadena, * 



* and they intend ultimately to have a cable railroad from bottom to 

 top, operated by the water on their own lands above the clouds." 



The Unio7i of June i8 contained another article on the subject by Dr. 

 Reid, in which he said : 



" There is a good deal of popular interest in Pasadena's mountain climb- 

 ing railroad projects, and everybody wants to know how the thing can be 

 done. There are at least five available plans for operating such roads. 

 First, the cable road, the same as those on Second and Temple streets in L,os 

 Angeles. Second, a single cable to draw a car up by winding around a 

 windlass at the mountain top. Third, a double track and double cable on 

 windlass, so that one car or train will go down as the other goes up. All 

 these imply stationary power of water or steam engine. Fourth, a central 

 cog-rail in which a cog-wheel plays from the car-axle, driven by locomotive 

 engine. This, of course, would require a lighter grade than any of the 

 cable plans. Fifth, an ordinary railroad with zig-zag and tunnel-loop track 

 to make the climb. This last could be operated without change of cars 

 from lyos Angeles to mountain top, but would be slow and tedious on the 

 zig-zag part of the climb, and more costly to build. Either one of these five 

 ways are practicable here.* It is only a question of money — or which plan 

 will cost the least to build and operate it." 



[See article on the ' ' Mount Wilson Toll Road ' ' for further particulars 

 about this matter.] The original company never did any practical work to- 

 wards either a bridle road, a wagon road, or a railroad. Its engineers were 

 kept busy surveying the various claims taken by them (for it was unsurveyed 

 government land) until the whole scheme failed for want of financial bottom. 

 The field was, therefore, still open for a railroad to the mountain top, for no 

 man had yet grasped the thing with the bull-dog grip of success. But now, 

 in January, 1890, Mr. D. J. Macpherson of Pasadena went into the mount- 

 ains with a few assistants and made Xh^ first bona fide survey that was ever 

 made in California for a railroad to the mountain tops. However, he had 

 been making previous preliminary observations and studying the problem 

 alone during nearly a year before this, for the Pasadena Standard of March 

 2, 1889, said : 



" D. J. Macpherson is prospecting a route by way of Las Flores and 

 Rubio canyons. * * * The cog-wheel railroad is the most feasible 

 scheme yet broached, and from the present terminus of the Altadena rail- 

 road and the Highland horse-car line right up the face of the mountain 

 where Sam Correll and his mule proposed to go, is the shortest, most direct, 

 and best-for-Pasadena route for the cog-road." 



♦Electricity was not a proved success at this time, for ordinary street car ser\'ice — and had not even 

 been thought of for a mountain railroad. 



