DIVISION SIX — BUSINESS. 445 



building the railroad, building the hotels, constructing bridle roads, design- 

 ing and establishing novel features to attract visitors, and finally the great 

 searchlight* at the zoological garden, the well-equipped observatory, the 

 printing outfit where the Daily Mount Lowe Echo is printed in the highest 

 style of typographic and photo-engraving art ; and other details, a full 

 account of all which would require a volume by itself. When Prof. 

 Lowe had finally decided on the " Great Incline" project, and to build his 

 road to the summit now called Mount lyowe [then known to old settlers as 

 "Oak Mountain"] instead of to Wilson's Peak, a force of men was promptly 

 put upon the grading work, both for the Rubio trolly section and the Echo 

 Mountain cable section, this latter being definitely commenced April 12, 

 1892, with D. J. Macpherson as engineer in charge of all surveys and con- 

 struction work. Thus Macpherson 's long dream of a mountain-cHmbing 

 railroad went on to realization : not exactly after his own original plan, but 

 as a direct outcome by genetic succession and "modification of species" 

 from it — a clear case of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest — 

 an impressive rescript and geneagraph in the law of evolution. [See cut on 

 page 409.] 



THE NAMING OF MOUNT LOWE. 



On September 24, 1892, Prof. Lowe led a company of friends on the 

 first ascent ever made on horseback to the summit of Oak Mountain — 6,100 

 feet above sea-level, or 300 feet higher than Wilson's peak — and first raised 

 the American flag there. The persons accompanying him were : Chas. A. 

 Gardner, editor Pasadena Daily Star; T. W. Brotherton, president Citizens 

 Bank, Los Angeles ; C. W. Brown, vice-president Pasadena National Bank ; 

 Dr. G. Roscoe Thomas of the Pasadena Improvement Co. ; Mr. Randall of Los 

 Angeles ; T. W. Parkes, architect ; Master Willard Brotherton ; and Thad- 

 deus Lowe, Jr. The guests understood that this great mountain, the highest 

 of the Sierra Madres that can be seen from Pasadena, had never been 

 named ; and by spontaneous, unanimous and enthusiastic impulse they 

 proceeded to christen it "Mount Lowe," the name by which in two years 

 its fame encircled the globe, and will go down to remotest history. f 



*" On Echo Mountain is the World's Fair searchlight — a monster 3,000,000 candle power electric 

 light, almost half as large again as any other searchlight in existence. The beam of light is so powerfttl 

 that a newspaper can be read at a distance of thirty-five miles [?] in its light, and almost nightly its far- 

 reaching rays illuminate the streets of Pasadena and Los Angeles and light up broad stretches of the 

 vaW&y.^'— Pasadena Star, December 2g, i8g4. 



tThe Auglaize, Ohio, Republican of December i, 1S92, contained a long letter from Los Angeles, 

 written by some one who w^s a member of this historic christening party, and from it I preserve the 

 following: "It was discovered that until this time this giant peak, the monarch of the Sierra Madres, was 

 unnamed. One of the party suggested, that whereas Prof. T. S. C. Lowe, the great scientist, had first 

 ridden to the top, had made the first trail to its lofty summit, was the first mau to have planled the stars 

 and stripes on its highest point, and was the first man to conceive the project of reaching its dizzy height 

 with a railroad and with courage and means to put such a project into execution, as was now being done, 

 no more fit and appropriate name could be given this mountain than the name of" Mount Lowe." 

 The motion to so name it was put and carried without a dissenting voice; and so there above the clouds 

 it was named, and will continue to be named when every one of the party present at the christening 

 shall have been laid away in mother earth, and generations yet unborn will trace its rugged outlines on 

 their physical geography and call it Mount Lowe. Andrew McNally , the grea'. Chicago map publisher, 

 who owns a beautiful residence and grounds near its base, says the' name given is so appropriate that 

 " Mount Lowe " it shall be called on their next maps." 



