by Paul R. Spitzzeri
This post on some history of flooding in the Arroyo Seco, or Dry Creek, a main feeder of mountain water to the Los Angeles River while also subject to occasional severe deluges that, as the areas in which it traversed developed with more settlement, caused increasingly greater damage. We have noted that, from the massive “Noah’s Flood” of December 1861-January 1862, such later examples as occurred in 1884, 1889, 1891, 1905, 1907 and 1909 involved more loss to private and public property as communities from Cypress Park to Highland Park to Garvanza expanded.
What tended to be reported in the press, presumably as having more broad impact, were effects to transportation routes, especially railroad bridges that crossed the Arroyo not far north from its confluence with the Arroyo Seco or went northeast towards Pasadena, as well as city-owed spans. Those houses, along with their outbuildings, as well as commercial buildings seemed secondary in terms of journalistic concerns.
Moreover, there was a growing movement from the first years of the 20th century to create an Arroyo Seco Park, combining recreational and transportation elements along the creek, but, of course, concerns about floods and their impacts had to be carefully considered as part of any in-depth planning for such a project. While the 1890s were primarily a decade of dry conditions, including several seasons of under 10 inches a rain each, the 1900s was a wetter period, with just one year recording below that amount.
Similarly, the Teens had a sole season, that of 1918-1919, in which precipitation was under double figures and its sum total of rainfall was just about four inches under the previous decade. While the 1909-1910 year was not particularly wet, with under 13 inches recorded, there was a period at the start of 1910 in which flooding took place and the South Pasadena Record of 6 January remarked that “the storm which swept over this part of the country [recently] was one of the most severe that has been experienced in a long time.”
This was saying something, given the heavy damage caused during the storms of February 1909. After noting major effects to rail and wagon bridges and the roiling waters of the San Gabriel River to the east wreaking havoc, the paper allowed that little destruction was experienced in town. It did note that,
In the Arroyo Seco, however, there was considerable trouble. Some of the supports of the Salt Lake bridge were washed away and the Pacific Electric officials ordered service over their bridge suspended until a thorough inspection of the structure could be made. The Pacific Electric, in fact, suffered severely as a result of the storm.
The Record called for a new span in the area as “none of the structures now there are of a character that meet the demands as present” and it promoted the idea that “a concrete bridge, such as has been suggested shall be built over the Arroyo would withstand any flood that ever came down there, and would remove all possibility of danger from washouts.” With years of experience with bridge problems, concluded the paper, “it is about time something more substantial were provided, in addition to providing a convenience for foot passengers and vehicles.”
Two days later, the Highland Park Herald reported that “before the flood subsided . . . it cut away the east bank below Avenue 43 and affected some 250 feet causing a water main to burst and leaving a gas main “dangling in the air.” Moreover, a portion of Salt Lake track followed the floodwaters down from the rail company’s gravel pit and “jammed against the piers” forcing the water to damage the approaches of the Avenue 43 bridge on both sides. A foot bridge at Avenue 52 was destroyed and three Salt Lake spans at Garvanza suffered the same fate.
The 5 February issue of the paper recorded that “work is to be hurried on the bridge which is to cross the Arroyo Seco at Avenue 52, on account of the loss of the foot bridge there in the recent flood.” The replacement, of 75-feet width was to be of steel and wood construction with bulkheads made of the latter material, but with a quartet of concrete piers. The estimated cost of $1,500 was to be split between the City of Los Angeles and property owners in the adjacent Highland Glen tract.
When, however, attempts were made at building better and stronger bridges, this could sometimes raise the hackles of residents, as was observed by the Los Angeles Herald of 29 September as it noted that a meeting of concerned citizens was held at a home on Avenue 66 in Garvanza and which “appointed a committee to protest against the proposed dirt fill with which the beauty and charm of the far-famed arroyo is threatened.”
The host, Dr. Evangeline Jordan, a pioneering woman dentist specializing in children patients and periodontistry and who was the first president of the American Association of Women Dentists, was joined by artist William Lees Judson, who founded the College of Fine Arts of the University of Southern California and was its dean for 27 years and who, with three sons, established, in 1911, the well-known Judson Studios of stained-glass making that is on Avenue 66 today, in this effort.
The committee was to report on “the probably cost of a concrete driving bridge” but was also to remark on “the danger, which . . . threatens not only the residents along the Arroyo, but all those people of Southern California who delight in its beauty and novelty.” Though it was asserted that “the bridge . . . was always referred to as one of concrete with wide arches of which the natural beauty of the arroyo, with its delightful vistas, would be quite undisturbed,” the Herald commented that “it has become known that the proposed bridge is to be made largely with dirt.”
The paper continued that “the embankment which the [Salt Lake] railroad company plans to have built” had elements that “promise not only disfugurement of the landscape, but danger from floods and a change of climate,” as it was claimed the span would alter air currents and “alter the atmospheric conditions in a great degree.” Project proponents promised that flowers and grass were to be planted on the embankment sides and that the city park board would ensure maintenance, though that body then stated that one side was owned by the Salt Lake.
Another fight concerned further annexation by the City of Los Angeles, which was very aggressive on this score in this era, of territory in the Arroyo area, with the Los Angeles Tribune of 7 October 1911 reporting, “strife is developing within the camp of those who want to add the Arroyo Seco territory to the city.” Specifically, Mary Foy, scion of a family long in residence in Los Angeles and known for her work as Los Angeles city librarian and as a Democratic Party stalwart and a resident of San Rafael Heights, and the Campbell-Johnston family of Annandale, who also built the remarkable Church of the Angels there, were against the idea.
The paper added that Foy and the Campbell-Johnston’s “own large tracts of acreage that would be subject to city assessments and would have to pay very largely for the proposed acquisition and improvement of Arroyo Seco park,” though they insisted that the main reason was that they’d recently founded a school district called Nithsdale “and they do not want it interfered with.” Today, there is a Nithsdale Road where San Rafael Elementary School is situated and, as this is in the western edge of Pasadena, the annexation idea failed to come to fruition. The Annandale name is preserved in that of the country club next to the 134 Freeway.
Upstream was one of the more remarkable projects anywhere along the Arroyo as beer magnate Augustus Busch expanded what the Los Angeles Times of 16 October 1910 gushed as “a world wonder” as his “palatial estate” received some $300,000 of investments in what was called “Busch’s Sunken Gardens.” A key part of the improvements was “a great ‘sea wall,’ which boxes in the Arroyo Seco in its winding course.”
This barrier comprised “great rubble concrete walls twelve feet high, eight feet wide at the bottom and one foot wide at the top” and running the length of Busch’s domain. The $15,000 project included walls 30 feet apart “giving ample room for the flow of the Arroyo Seco during flood times,” while a private road paralleled them and “two arched bridges have been placed across the roaring arroyo.”
Returning to the concrete span plan, an Arroyo Seco landmark came into being as the famous Colorado Street Bridge was constructed in 1912-1913 at, reported the Times of 29 June 1913, a cost of $200,000 shared by the County of Los Angeles and City of Pasadena. Built of reinforced concrete and steel and towering some 160 feet above the arroyo bed, the bridge, opened on 13 December 1913, made it far easier to access the Crown City from the west by a rapidly growing automobile traffic and its piers were designed to deal with that occasional heavy flood flow of the creek.
When it came, however, to the long-gestating Arroyo Seco Park (also, Parkway) idea, the question of flooding was obviously a major issue. Notably, the 18 November 1911 issue of the Pasadena Star published a diagram showing the expansive area, which was linked to Elysian and Griffith parks in terms of large-scale park space, in mind from the confluence of the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo up to Devil’s Gate at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains and deep into the Angeles National Forest.
The South Pasadena Record of 6 May 1913, however, ran a feature under the heading of “Necessities First; Then Luxuries” in which, for that city, it asserted that fire protection, sewers and water were in the former and were priorities, after which the city “will be in a position to give attention to some of the luxuries that will beautify the community, and make it an attractive residence section in which to live.”
The paper reminded readers that the city council gave its support for the project about a year prior, while Los Angeles, Pasadena and Los Angeles County were also in favor, with the Crown City reported to have acquired above 2/3 of the parkway area in its limits, while South Pasadena and the county were awaiting the City of Los Angeles’ ability to secure land in its boundaries. It also briefly observed that “although dry throughout the greater portion of the year, the Arroyo Seco, like other California streams, is liable to large and sudden floods” and added,
Between South Pasadena and Sycamore Grove, the Arroyo is heavily wooded and of great beauty. In most places the natural boundaries may be secured without condemning an excessive area. Below this point, however, the Arroyo is of no great scenic value and a narrow parkway is the logical treatment. This would be ample to provide for the proper handling of the storm water of the stream and yet leave sufficient area for the parkway planting, walks and drives.
The Record continued that, while there were no earlier concepts involving having the parkway below Avenue 35, where Pasadena Avenue crosses the arroyo now, “but the great value of such parkway lies in its connection with the heart of the city, and especially with a park system such as Los Angeles will eventually evolve.” It also noted that “if the parkway should end at an intermediate point, not connecting with the rest of the city park system,” meaning Elysian and Griffith parks, “its value to this city, as well as to the sister communities, would be greatly decreased.”
In an editorial by Harry Bowling titled “Arroyo Seco Parks” in Times of 21 October, he remarked that there were flowers and lawns in the “old-time, dry mesas in the north and west of Los Angeles” that were “the cynosure of every stranger and the joy of every householder,” while in the hills to the north and east were residences and their landscapes that were “as fair as the most exacting could desire.” He opined that,
But the most beautiful of all our natural surroundings we have so far entirely neglected. The Arroyo Seco from the Devil’s Gate above Pasadena to Sycamore Grove in East Los Angeles [Highland Park, not what is now Lincoln Heights!] has not received the attention, the care, the comparatively small expense that would so easily convert it into a succession of magnificent parks.
Invoking the eternal need to outdoor San Francisco, Bowling exclaimed that “nature offers us a challenge [to the northern metropolis] in the extensive Arroyo Seco, scooped out—so to speak—as a natural driveway to the front door of our city. Why treat it as a ‘service entrance’ only?” With Los Angeles poised to become the main metropolis west of the Rockies and Pasadena deemed “the most ideal home city on earth,” the writer inquired, “what better proof could we give of our civic pride than to connect these two with a string of parks that shall be something unique in the history of landscape gardening?”
Busch set an example with his gardens, said to be “the show place of the Crown City, [and] the best advertising she has ever had.” Allowing that this munificence was not possible for the Arroyo, Bowling insisted that “we can turn it into a bower of beauty at a moderate expense, to be a park for our citizens, a pleasure resort for holiday makers and a perpetual playground for children.” Much more difficult work was already done, including “ornamental bridges across this mighty gorge,” so he asked, “why leave the work half completed by neglecting the gorge itself.”
The author continued,
What a wonderful panorama it presents to the lover of nature! Stand on the slope of the oak-studded hills that stretch from South Pasadena to Highland Park and take a comprehensive view of the wooded glen through which serpentines the bed of the Arroyo. There are blots on the landscape; a huge tumbledown, whitewashed barn, a rickety, black trestle bridge, a crude rock-crushing plant, too many shanties, ugly, bare patches of rock and sand where uncontrolled floods have washed away their banks, too much tangle of weeds and rubbish.
Bowling exhorted readers to “imagine the result if all these eyesores were removed, if the stream was confined to one deep channel” and the overgrowth replaced by flowers and grass and “a smooth, oiled road followed the meanderings of the stream.” Otherwise, sycamores, willows and other plantings should be preserved and “construction, not destruction, will be the order of the day.” With “good taste and inspired planting,” there would be “five miles of parkland scenery not to be surpassed this side of Paradise, much less in San Francisco.”
As to the funding, a “small assessment . . . levied on each property holder along the improved sections would come back a hundredfold in the increased value of their holdings.” East Los Angeles, Bowling offered, “needs to stir itself” and contribute so that it could be another Smiley Heights at Redlands or Pacific Palisades. Bowling, somewhat more realistic than Walker Jones in his 1911 views from part five of this post, concluded,
Concerted effort under effective leadership will arouse the public spirit of all interested in the most beautiful stretch of natural scenery to be found in the suburbs of Los Angeles; an avenue designed by the Creator, to lead to the gates of his fairest city. We who boast of how we have made ‘the desert blossom as of the rose,” shall we allow a natural rosebush to grow nothing but thorns and foliage?
A few months later, however, came the floods of 1914, followed by deluges two years later, and this finally forced Los Angeles County to act to address the matter and create a board of engineers for flood control. The chief engineer of the county flood control district, James W. Reagan, undertook an ambitious plan of projects throughout the region, an early example of which was the dam and reservoir at Devil’s Gate, completed in 1920 as the earliest built by the district to tame the Arroyo Seco.
During the last half of the 1930s in the Great Depression, more than nine miles of the Arroyo Seco was channelized by the federal government’s New Deal program, the Works Progress Administration. While this effort was underway, work was undertaken for what is generally acknowledged as the first freeway in the United States, the Arroyo Seco Parkway, now State Route 110, built between 1938 and 1940.
As for parks, aside from Sycamore Grove, there is the Hermon Park in Los Angeles, as well as the Arroyo Seco Park in South Pasadena, and the Lower and Upper Arroyo, Brookside (next to the Rose Bowl stadium) and Hahamongna Watershed parks in Pasadena. Moreover, most of the communities along the watercourse have changed significantly over the last century and more and it will certainly be interesting to see what the future holds for the area.