Pasadena Star-News - May 18, 2008

Elevated praise for Mt. Lowe
Pasadena Star-News (CA) - Sunday, May 18, 2008
Author: Sidney Gally, Correspondent

A gallery full of Mt. Lowe souvenirs is now on exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of History.

In 1895, the Pasadena Weekly Star published this drawing of the incline railway that climbed Echo Mountain from Rubio Canyon. The railway from Echo Mountain to Crystal Springs closer to Mt. Lowe was still under construction.

A member of the visiting State Editorial Association who wrote as "Ruth Ramaler" for the Contra Costa News contributed her observations to the Star.

" Mount Echo is the Wonderland of the South," she wrote.

Her train from Los Angeles was late getting to Altadena Junction, where passengers changed to electric cars for the ride to the foot of the incline.

She wrote, "Darkness had already settled on the face of the earth before we reached Rubio landing, but high above our heads, as far as the eye could reach, a thousand twinkling electric lights located Mount Echo Hotel.

"When we stood at the foot of the Great Cable Incline that extends from Rubio pavilion, 2,200 feet above the sea, to the summit of Echo Mountain, 3,500 feet in altitude, you will not wonder that there was a little tightening of the throat muscles and a somewhat accelerated throbbing of the heart as we stepped into the white chariots that will carry a party of twenty at a time."

The 8-minute trip left her reassured.

At the hotel she said, "Surely this was fairyland we stepped into for hundreds of soft lights were illuminating the place; thick carpets deadened the sound of footsteps; well-trained servants swooped noiselessly around.

"Professor T.S.C. Lowe was on Echo Mountain in person to greet the editorial party.

"The great World's Fair searchlight was thrown upon the beautiful San Gabriel Valley below; the observatory was visited and the heavens searched through the telescope; a bugle call brought to us the wonderful echo that has given the spot its name.

"Early risers tell of a wonderful sunrise that touched the mountain peaks with golden light and later bathed the valley below in rosy billows. Mount Lowe towered above us.

"We must descend to earth again and so into the white chariots without any nervous qualms this time. Back to our Pullman, and off for Santa Monica and the sea."