668 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



And latest benedictions and the tenderest caress 



Are pressed upon its temples by the purple of the west. 



Ships sail by that Highland City* in the offing of the sky 

 With the pennants and the orders of the Admiral on high, 

 Bearing nightly courses westward in a heavenly patrol, 

 While the thunders of their cannon by the Mother Mountains roll. 



Steaming upwards from the lowlands at the closing of the day, 

 By the ever-shining spirals of the trail of Santa Fe, 

 Circling upward, ever upward, like an eagle in its flight, 

 From the region of the shadow to the region of the light, 



Gleam the portals of the city that can never more be hid. 

 Flashing out upon the vision as the Roman mistress did — f 

 Alba Longa of the moderns in its beauty and its pride, 

 With the laurel of the victor and the orange of the bride. 



THE SHORE WATER SCARE. 



In 1890 there was a good deal of scare-talk in the Pasadena press about J. 

 DeBarth Shorb's grand project for making an artificial lake in Sycamore 

 canyon, a branch of the Eagle Rock Valley just over west of the Linda 

 Vista hills, and storing it with the surplus waters of the Arroyo Seco, then 

 piping it from the said reservoir lake down to Los Angeles. The plan was, 

 to take water from the Arroyo at some point higher up than any of the 

 Pasadena companies had filed their claims ; and it was feared that under 

 pretense of ' ' surplus w^aters ' ' this Shorb syndicate scheme would really tap 

 and train off Pasadena's water supply. Among the curiosities to be seen in 

 driving along the roadway of the upper Arroyo to the foot of Switzer's trail 

 are some tunnels through rocky spurs of the canyon wall ; and there are 

 also tunnels in the Linda Vista hills leading through to Sycamore canyon. 

 This was work done by the Shorb syndicate ; and the Staroi November 19, 

 1890, in deprecating this prospective raid on Pasadena's water resources, 

 said : 



"A series of tunnels are being run through projecting hills, 7x8 feet in 

 dimensions, * -^ to bring water to the flat below Las Casitas ; thence by 

 pipes down the east bank of the Arroyo to a point below Devil's Gate, where 

 the Arroyo will again be crossed and the Linda Vista hills tunneled 

 through to Eagle Rock Valley." 



Attorney W. S. Wright, on behalf of Pasadena interests made an inves- 

 tigation of the legal status as to water claims above Devil's Gate, and the 

 Star oi October 7, 1891, thus reported his findings: 



" He finds several filings on the surplus waters of the Arroyo Seco ^nd 

 Millard canyon, made by the Pasadena Land and Water Company, the 

 Shorb Company, the Painter Company, the Highland Park Company, and 



*I<or Pasadena's fame as a landmark at sea, see page 383— "Las Floras canyon." 



t ''Alba Longa" or long white city was one of the names of ancient Rome ; and Pasadena looks 

 that way as one approaches it from I,os Angeles, up through the Arroyo Seco pass. 



