by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The automobile age came to Los Angeles in 1897 when J. Philip Erie introduced a “horseless carriage” on the streets of the Angel City and, though the vehicle was not a success, it did not take long for others to become well-established. In short order, Los Angeles became a car-crazed metropolis and boasted the most registrations per capita in the nation, with one source recording that, by 1920, there were four times as many autos in the city than the average in the rest of the country.
Moreover, it was noted that in that year nine times as many people took streetcars into town than autos, but, by 1924, the number was about the same for each, even as the amount of space in the downtown business district was, on a percentage basis, less than half of that of Washington, D.C., nearly so compared to San Diego and quite a bit lower than such American cities as Cleveland, San Francisco, Seattle and Pittsburgh.
For the San Gabriel Valley, the growing emphasis on automotive transportation naturally followed the pace of development, which, of course, was earliest in the west end closer to Los Angeles. Cities like Pasadena and Alhambra grew rapidly in the early 20th century and commuters, while they relied more heavily on streetcars, increasingly took to cars, especially as prices fell rapidly, thanks to such innovations as Henry Ford’s assemblyline manufacturing process.
By the early 1920s, however, suburban sprawl was moving closer to the center of the Valley, including in such towns as Monterey Park, El Monte, Arcadia and the new Town of Temple, founded by Homestead owner Walter P. Temple and renamed Temple City in 1928, and West Covina. Older eastern Valley communities like Covina, Glendora and Puente expanded during this period, as well, and the need for more arterial roads and highways became more pronounced.
An early 20th century example of importance was Foothill Boulevard, with the Los Angeles Express of 11 July 1904 informing readers that “for the new foothill boulevard to San Bernardino, the highway commissioners have established the following route,” which was a bit convoluted. Leaving the county courthouse on Temple Street and Broadway, drivers were to go through East Los Angeles, soon renamed Lincoln Heights, and head through El Sereno and into South Pasadena “to Colorado street, Pasadena.”
From there, the route was to go “east to Santa Anita” and then north to Monrovia, “east over the main road to Duarte,” and “east over San Gabriel [River] bridge to Azusa.” The path then zigzagged through the northeastern portion of the San Gabriel Valley, including through Glendora, to San Dimas “east of Claremont and to [the] San Bernardino county line to connect with the Upland road.” It was clear that there was no intention or perceived benefit to seeking a direct and new route, though seven years later another reference showed some change in thinking.
The Pomona Review of 13 October 1911 remarked,
There is reason for joy in the hearts of the people on ranches, on groves and in the towns along the foothills all the way from the ocean [at Santa Monica] to Redlands. The Southern California Highway Commission has recommended by unanimous vote that Foothill boulevard be the route upon which the State shall spend a part of the $18,000,000 good roads bonds voted by California last November. In other words, Foothill boulevard is to be the only thoroughfare in this part of the state that will receive any portion of the $18,000,000. The proposition to make Foothill boulevard the finest rural avenue in all California is going to become a reality.
Foothill Boulevard become a significant portion of Route 66 in the Inland Empire from San Bernardino through Rialto, Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, Claremont, La Verne and San Dimas before reaching Glendora, where the U.S. highway then followed Alosta Avenue. Foothill Boulevard, however, is to the north from Amelia Avenue westward to Citrus Avenue, where there is a reconnection of Route 66 near Azusa Pacific University.
At the San Gabriel River, the name changes to Huntington Drive, with that name coming into being just before the Foothill Boulevard concept came into being. With Henry E. Huntington moving to Los Angeles in 1901 and, in partnership with banker Isaias W. Hellman, moving quickly into suburban electric streetcar and real estate development, his Oneonta Park tract in South Pasadena, in the area where Huntington Drive meets Fair Oaks Avenue, was connected to Los Angeles by this new thoroughfare that now begins where Mission Road comes out of Lincoln Heights and meets Soto Street, which heads south into Boyle Heights.
An early located reference to Huntington Drive is from the 23 November 1903 number of the Los Angeles Times, which reported that “a consideration portion . . . is now ready for the last coating of gravel” and that “this drive has the double-tracked electric [streetcar] line in the center, set off by cement curbing, and a finely built roadway on either side.” Moreover, there was a buffer between the tracks and road to be planted to a variety of landscaping, while it was added that “a gang of men is working on the extension along the Monrovia line now.”
The 19 December edition of the Express, in discussing Oneonta Park, remarked that Huntington Drive was
a thoroughfare ten miles long extending through [the] beautiful San Gabriel valley. This roadway leaves Pasadena at the Raymond hotel and goes east through Oneonta Park to El Molino, Lake Vineyard, San Marino and Winston ranch [East Pasadena] to a connection with Colorado street . . .
Later, the road was extended into Arcadia, Monrovia and Duarte before crossing the San Gabriel to connect to Foothill. To the south, the use of the name “Valley Boulevard” for the old road discussed in earlier portions of this post was referred to in the Los Angeles Record of 15 June 1908, which let readers know that, as support was promoted for a $3 million bond issue for roads, “two famous boulevards are planned,” with the first being the 80-mile Foothill.
The paper then observed that,
The second proposed boulevard will be known as the “valley boulevard,” and will be 50 miles long. It will begin at Pomona and pass through El Monte, [Pico] Rivera and Lamanda park to Long Beach.
This idea of routing the boulevard through the Whittier Narrows to Long Beach, which was reconstituted as a separate road that is now Rosemead Boulevard (State Route 19) was reconsidered, so that the 10 September 1910 issue of the Pomona Times noted that the Automobile Club of Southern California, which grew to be a dominant force in highway issues of all kinds in greater Los Angeles and beyond, promoted a new concept.
This iteration, the paper noted, involved the idea that,
A new boulevard is being planned for Southern California . . . [it] will run from Los Angeles to Riverside . . . and will be known to autoists far and wide as the “Valley Boulevard” to differentiate it from the foothill boulevard which runs to the north of us.
It will pass through ElMonte [sic], Bassett, Puente, Lemon [Walnut], Spadra, Pomona, [and] Ontario thence via the new diagonal road to Riverside [Mission Boulevard]. In other words, the road . . . [will] form an important link in the Southern California system of boulevards.
The south road from Los Angeles to Ontario is at present unmarked by road signs. The diagonal road is also unmarked. But this work will be remedied at once and the work of erecting signs by the Automobile Club of Southern California will begin at once, and be completed in about three weeks . . .
It is expected that the Valley Boulevard, when completed, will become an important link in the inland San Diego route . . .
this road, the new Valley Boulevard, promises to be a favorite route for touring parties . . . the new boulevard will vie with the present foothill boulevard for through traffic, it means that many more people will pass through here.
Pomona, in fact, was so fired with enthusiasm for the possibilities of Valley Boulevard that leaders there lobbied aggressively with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to rename the thoroughfare “Pomona Boulevard.” In mid-September 1913, the Pomona Progress ran a banner headline to announce the news, while the Pomona Times remarked that Riverside undertook “strenuous efforts to have the road named ‘Mission Road” and boasted that “on every auto map and in other places the name will be conspicuously displayed.”
It turned out, however, that the “Valley Boulevard” moniker had staying power, so that, while Pomona Boulevard was frequently utilized for some years—in fact, the Homestead had that address in some sources during the 1920s when Walter Temple was its owner—Valley eventually won out for the San Gabriel Valley portion of the route. Drivers, however, leaving Walnut and the City of Industry north of Grand Avenue, will find that there is a fork today, in which the old route, bearing the Pomona Boulevard name, heads to the right, while Valley Boulevard, to the left, heads past Cal Poly Pomona and becomes Holt Boulevard.
Speaking of Holt Boulevard, there was a movement to establish a route from Pomona westward, through the San José Hills north of the Cal Poly campus, and to connect to another important route, Garvey Avenue. Richard Garvey was an agent of “Lucky” Baldwin for the lands, largely acquired by foreclosure of the Temple and Workman bank loan of the 1870s, that embraced much of the central and eastern San Gabriel Valley.
The earliest located mention of his namesake street is from early 1894, but, a dozen years, the new tract of Ramona Acres was established by Garvey, of whom the Los Angeles Times of 15 July 1906 remarked, “owned the land of which Ramona Acres forms a part, and other vast tracts reaching southerly and easterly to the San Gabriel River down by La Honda [the Río Hondo, or old river channel],” this including the Workman and Temple lands in the Whittier Narrows.
Notably, the account added that,
Mr. Garvey’s project is to have the county open up what he says was really the Camino Real in the old mission days. If this project is carried out, and Mr. Garvey thinks it will be, the road will leave the city limits near the southeastern corner of Los Angeles city on Boyle Heights and run through the beautiful gorge known as the old Monterey Pass to Ramona, connecting with Garvey avenue right at Ramona Acres, and at a distance of a mile from the city boundary, the whole of the San Gabriel Valley is in plain view, offering a most charming vista of one of the most beautiful stretches of land, even in Southern California.
Ramona Acres and adjoining tracts morphed into the city of Monterey Park, where the Temple family briefly resided in 1917 after oil drilling on their ranch to the south in the northeast corner of Montebello provided them the wealth to find more comfortable quarters. In 1922, Walter Temple acquired property at the main downtown intersection of Garvey and Garfield avenues, where a building named for his associate, realtor Thomas Berry and another, which went unrealized, was planned.
The Progress of 11 February 1926, with a headline of “NEW SAN DIMAS-L.A. HIGHWAY ASSURED,” informed readers that a contract was soon to consummated for “the El Monte-Baldwin Park cutoff, insuring San Dimas and mid-valley towns with a straight-line independence highway connection with Los Angeles,” the news of which “was received here with jubilation today.” It was added that “this cutoff joins up the Garvey avenue entrance to Los Angeles” as well as established a “connection with the existing West Covina road being established where the highway now curves south to Bassett and the Valley boulevard west of the bridge there.”
This last description is somewhat obscure with respect to the “existing West Covina road,” this perhaps being Baldwin Park Boulevard, but it was added that,
From Baldwin Park to San Dimas the highway is already in use, the route passing thru West Covina and hence north to connect with the western end of Bonita avenue, soon to be the main course of the Arrow highway. Over Bonita avenue direct connection may be made via San Dimas and La Verne with Claremont, via Cucamonga avenue [today Bonita Avenue goes to Claremont]; or with the Foothill boulevard via San Dimas avenue, or Grand avenue at Bonita high school [in La Verne south of Foothill Boulevard/Route 66].
The Baldwin Park-El Monte route is not a part of the Arrow highway project, but will serve as an optional southerly route for users of the Arrow road west of San Dimas. The new cutoff is felt certain to furnish a great stimulus to midvalley travel, as the route from El Monte passes thru but little built up territory and is fairly sure to be largely free of truck traffic.
Its picturesque advantages are marked in contrast to the Valley boulevard.
Moreover, noted the paper, those living in Pomona and points east were “assured of a new Los Angeles connection over the cutoff, if plans for the projection westward of Holt avenue are carried out.” What was called the “Ontario-Pomona thorofare [sic],” was “scheduled to be extended to connect with Covina over the [San José] hills to the west of Pomona” and it was added that “parts of the Covina-Pomona road are already complete,” with this route forming “a straighter connection with Los Angeles than the Valley boulevard.”
This intriguing reference involves the extension of Holt Avenue from Pomona into a gap in the hills where Interstate 10 now runs, but, once passing the ranch of cereal magnate Will Keith Kellogg, this is now Cal Poly Pomona, there is Covina Hills Road, which terminates now at the interstate and runs northwest and intersects with Holt Avenue. This Holt heads southwest under the 10 Freeway and connects with Garvey Avenue South, of which there is a parallel version called Garvey Avenue North as these run along the interstate, but, before the construction of the 10 in the 1950s and 1960s, was the old Garvey route.
Another notable project of the mid-Twenties was a plan to extend Pomona’s 5th Street westward to Los Angeles along the southern end of the San Gabriel Valley, with the Progress of 18 June 1926 reporting, in a section of an article titled “May Join Garvey Avenue,” that such landowners as the Phillips family, the Diamond Bar Ranch of Frederick E. Lewis, the Currier ranch, now largely in the City of Industry adjacent to Diamond Bar and Walnut, and others, might provide rights-of-way to a new road “to connect with Garvey avenue and so on into Los Angeles via Brooklyn avenue [César A. Chávez Avenue].”
What ended up transpiring later with this route was that 5th Street in Pomona became the extension of Mission Road coming in on the east from Riverside and now becomes Diamond Bar Boulevard. Heading south on this road, the route turns southwest along Golden Springs Drive, which, upon entering Rowland Heights, becomes Colima Road, though, in the 1950s, when suburban development came to that section, Colima was known as 5th Avenue. Mentioned in the article was the community of Otterbein, through which Colima passes in Rowland Heights, though, while the thoroughfare now moves into Hacienda Heights and crosses the Puente Hills into Whittier, the 1920s plan evidently was for the road to run further north closer to today’s 60 Freeway and make the connection to Garvey Avenue in El Monte, likely by traversing today’s South El Monte.
Another ambitious route from Los Angeles to San Bernardino pursued during the Roaring Twenties was the Arrow Highway, with the name clearly stating the intention of a road that was to be as straight as possible to connect these cities. The 21 March 1924 issue of the Progress, under a headline of “NEW BOULEVARD IS PLANNED TO REAC ALL [THE] WAY TO LOS A[NGELES],” remarked on “a proposed new boulevard to pass thru the hearts of foothill cities which are not now on the direct line of any thru highway,” this championed by The Arrow Route Association.
It was added that “if the project is carried thru it will mean a new boulevard extending from San Bernardino to Los Angeles, between the Foothill and Valley boulevards.” While Los Angeles County towns and officials were enthusiastic about the idea, their counterparts in San Bernardino County were initially hesitant, reported the Progress of 6 April 1925, citing budget constraints from lower property assessed valuations and its road building plans for its response that it would be a decade before it could commit to an Arrow Highway project, which it did support.
The 24 September 1926 edition of the Pomona sheet, however, found that,
Prospects are today brighter for the completion of the Arrow Route highway than at any other time since the proposal of the project . . . Indications, based on the reports of representatives from districts along the route, are for a speedy completion of the work, with an ultimate highway from San Bernardino to Los Angeles by the most direct route possible.
Ultimately, the Arrow Highway proved not to be as straightforward as proponents projected. Today, the furthest west the route reaches is in Irwindale just west of Interstate 605, though Live Oak Avenue, which it joins there goes west into Temple City, which embraced the Arrow Route project in the Twenties. Just to the north Las Tunas Drive turns into Main Street in Alhambra and then that becomes Huntington Drive in El Sereno for the final approach into Los Angeles.
To the east, Arrow, passing through the eastern San Gabriel Valley not far south of Interstate 210, runs through San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona and Claremont before moving into San Bernardino County in Montclair—though there is an Arrow Highway and an Arrow Route in that city. The former retains its name in Upland, while the latter becomes 8th Street, but, on entering Rancho Cucamonga, Arrow Highway turns into Arrow Route! In Fontana, though, Arrow Route turns into Arrow Boulevard, but once Rialto is reached, the street becomes Rialto Avenue.
Just north of Rialto Avenue in San Bernardino is 5th Street, which becomes the westbound portion of Route 66 after that federal highway descends from Cajon Pass to the north along Cajon Boulevard and Mt. Vernon Avenue. As mentioned before, 5th turns into Foothill Boulevard, which formerly became Alosta Avenue in Glendora—but this city, where we had our Route 66 Centennial program last Saturday, is the only local burg to officially designate its portion of the historic highway as Route 66.
Hopefully, this post has provided some interesting and informative information about the many routes of travel (on horseback, horse-drawn conveyances, trains, streetcars and automobiles, motorcycles and trucks) through the San Gabriel Valley, especially its eastern portion, from the early 1850s to the mid 1920s. While we end here at 1926, when Route 66 was established, Los Angeles County embarked on an ambitions regional highway plan with reports earmarked for several districts. The only one to be published, however, was for the San Gabriel Valley and was issued in 1929—the Great Depression ended the plans for the others. A prior post on this blog summarized this report and may be worth checking out, though we might return for a deeper dive into that document!