Los Angeles herald., 1890-07-29


belt, twenty-five miles from Los Angeles,
on the line of the great transcontinental
road (the Atchison, Topeka and Santa
Fe), protected by many folded hills, at
the head OF salubrious valley, watered
by the sinuous San Gabriel river and it's
sparkling tributaries, Azusa, from a
commercial, scenic and sanitary stand
point, is enviably environed.
To the north and east are the stately
Sierras, with their snowy spires above
the clouds, their billowy buttresses man
tied by many-colored leaves. Southwark
is the valley, gemmed with golden groves
and tasselled corn and twining gvineyards
and cleaning grain. Beyond the brown
mesas, the hedge-hemmed towns, the
.parden-girdled ranchos, lies the placid
sea, forty miles away, 800 feet below the
level of our lofty little vale.
Ages and ages ago, the scientists
tell us, this broad and beautiful
plateau was but narrow arm of the
sea, less than two miles in width. The
mountains then lowered up miles and
miles above their present eminence, and
the deep waters of the ocean laved their
scraggy sides.
At length passage, barely traceable
by the red-skinned aborigines and the
tawdry grizzly, then the only inhabi-
tants of these sequestered shores, was
wrought by the warning waters. Gradu-
ally, imperceptibly, through the agency
of the tides and the patient debris,
these deposits OF strata were worn away,
until the mountains were leveled, the
little hills laid waste, the water sub
sided, and Azusa stands in her regal
dignity 800 feet above the level of the
sea.
AS shipping depot Azusa is one OF
the most important points in Southern
California, hundreds of casks of native
wines, carloads of every variety of fruits
producible in this prolific zone, are an
snually exported.
Bee and raisin culture is also receiv-
ing careful and conscientious attention,
with results that seem superlatively sat
isfactory.
From the number of focks and herds
that haunt the sylvan shades, and
,quench their thirst in the cool shadows,
stock raising in not, by any means, an
abandoned industry.
The varied developments of this sec
ton are largely traceable to the perfect
system OF irrigation which prevails, the
San Gabriel river being the
fountain head. Down the copious
.caflon of that name it flows
and yields a larger supply of water
than all the cailons combined between
San Bernardino and Santa Monica. In
addition to this unfailing source, the
ranches are surrounded with cement
Il
mountain springs and melting SHOWS.
But the products of Azusa and her
immediate vicinity are not confined to
as prospectors and far-seeing specu-
lators have long since learned.
The discovery of silver and gold in the
San Gabriel cahon Justly celebrated for
its wildly picturesque scenery, dates
from the year 1859, when quantities of
the precious "dust'' were taken from
the placers and shipped to San Fran
cisco.
Since that eventful period, develop
1ments, by no means merely expert
mental, have been steadily going on.
Authorities strictly authetic state
that from the year 1859 to 1865 two
millions of dollars worth OF native gold
was taken out of the San Gabriel
mines and converted into coin.
Although the more recent results Of
athe pick and pan industry are, statis-
tically speaking, unprocurable, it is
gpresumable from the present activity,
that the value of the quartz veins in
this vicinity is past calculation. How
ever that may be, the canon, from its
idyllic seclusion, its weird, wonderful
beauty, its trout-abounding streams, its
game-haunted highways, will always
attract the tourist, the sportsman, the
artist, the poet, the great army of trade
atrammeled toilers, to whom a summers
<outing among natures innumerable
charms, means rest and recuperation,
and health, hope and happiness, and
length of days.