444 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



PROF, lowe; takes hold. 



Prof. lyowe was born and raised amid the mountains of New Hampshire; 

 he was a natural lover of mountains ; and the more he investigated and 

 thought about this mountain railroad project the more it grew upon him, 

 until it became at last the crowning purpose of his life — for in connection 

 with it as a mere business enterprise he also conceived a higher and grander 

 purpose in the interests of science to which it. could be made eminently sub- 

 servient, so that one feature could aid the other, and thus make a double suc- 

 cess in a double service to mankind, above and beyond any other mountain rail- 

 road on the face of the earth. He soon discovered, however, that the terminal 

 grounds on Mount Wilson were parceled and staked and held by various 

 claimants who had only the narrowest cent-per-cent ideas of the project, and 

 who imagined vain things as to the absolute necessity that any road which 

 might be built must come to their grounds anyway. This would greatly em- 

 barrass and hinder the loftier objects he had in view, unless he should buy 

 out all their claims at boom-bubble prices. Meanwhile he pushed investi- 

 gations as to elevation, water supply, and possible accessibility of other 

 mountain eminences nearer to Pasadena, and more conspicuously in view 

 from its multitude of lovely homes. In regard to this period I quo^e here 

 from a pamphlet by Prof. G. Wharton James, entitled "The Pasadena 

 Mountain Railway," published in 1893, page 12 : 



" In the latter part of 1890 he placed a corps of engineers in the field 

 to make thorough surveys. The engineers were instructed to examine all 

 desirable peaks. And with a persistency which to the skilled engineers 

 seemed nothing less than stubborn obstinacy. Professor Lowe kept them 

 engaged month after month, urging them to exercise their utmost endeavors 

 to devise a method of scaling the (to them) unscalable mountain, whilst he 

 himself bent his own trained energies and powers of observation to the 

 work. And as the result of his personal labor and unwearied determination, 

 he was at last able to point out a simple, effective and perfectly safe method 

 of overcoming the chief difficulty in the way of reaching Mount L,owe, 

 which, when seen, was immediately approved and endorsed by the highest 

 engineering authorities. The new survey was undertaken and pushed to its 

 completion with almost incredible speed ; and to the astonishment of all 

 concerned, it not only was found that the ascent to Mount IvOwe could be 

 made with ease, but that — with the exception of the one steep climb which 

 the Echo Mountain Cable overcomes in six minutes — in no place would the 

 grade exceed the slight rise of seven and a half per cent. This new route 

 also revealed further possibilities not before contemplated. It allows the 

 company to erect its stations and hotels at different altitudes to suit the 

 many and varying health-conditions required. The Rubio canyon pavilion 

 is the same height as the Catskill mountains hotels ; Echo Mountain House 

 is about the height of Mount Vesuvius ; Mount Eowe is the same altitude 

 as Colorado Springs and Mount Washington ; whilst Observatory [San 

 Gabriel] Peak compares in altitude with the Iron Springs hotel at Manitou, 

 Colorado . ' ' 



Erom this time forward the work progressed steadily in grading and 



