PROFESSOR THADDEUS LOWE
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
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."
INDEX PAGE
BEFORE THE WAR
CIVIL WAR YEARS
INVENTIONS AND INDUSTRY
NORRISTOWN
PENNSYLVANIA YEARS
PASADENA CALIFORNIA YEARS
MOUNT LOWE RAILWAY
AFTER THE RAILWAY
LOWE FAMILY
BOOKS ABOUT LOWE
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
EVENTS AND REUNIONS
ARTIFACTS AND HISTORY
ENCYCLOPEDIA
BIOGRAPHY
ACCLAMATIONS AND AWARDS
LINKS TO OTHER THADDEUS LOWE WEBSITES