Rick Thomas
Author Rick Thomas is the former museum curator and vice-chair of education for the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation. He served on the South Pasadena Natural Resources Commission, helping to maintain a strict policy protecting the city’s great old-growth trees. Using touchstone photographs from his own collection—one of the San Gabriel Valley’s largest accumulations of historical images and artifacts—as well as national, state, and local historical archives, Thomas provides a window to his city’s past and an understanding of why its preservation is so important.
Throwback Thursday | Raymond Hill: Then and Now
I like to time travel. That’s why I collect original photographs of places that no longer exist. Grand places like the first resort hotel in San Gabriel Valley, The Raymond. Which is – I...
Throwback Thursday | Golf at The Raymond
The Raymond 1901-1933
After the Royal Raymond (1886-1895) is razed by fire, the hotel is rebuilt.
The Raymond hotel’s hilltop location provided certain advantages over other resort hotels that came later. The Raymond had breathtaking views...
Throwback Thursday | First Resort Hotel in San Gabriel Valley
The Royal Raymond
1886 to 1895 (consumed by fire on Easter Sunday)
Over 130 years ago Walter Raymond chose a hilltop in South Pasadena to build the first major resort hotel in San Gabriel Valley. The...
Throwback Thursday | Historic Subway Tunnel Still on Raymond Hill
The Raymond was demolished in 1934, but a hotel-access tunnel remains intact on Raymond Hill today.
A unique feature of South Pasadena’s resort hotel was its tunnel - located about half-way up Raymond Hill. It...
Throwback Thursday | Infamous Off-Ramp at Fair Oaks
The maximum speed limit for Arroyo Seco Parkway was 45 mph when it opened on December 30, 1940. Taking the Fair Oaks Avenue exit in South Pasadena was easily manageable – even when the...
Throwback Thursday | Harnessing the Sun
In 1883 (before the City of South Pasadena was incorporated), local area boosters published the book “A Southern California Paradise” to make the case that San Gabriel Valley (Pasadena, San Gabriel, Sierra Madre, La...
Throwback Thursday | Feather Fashion: Cawston Store Chain
South Pasadena’s Cawston Ostrich Farm (1896-1934) was not a typical farm or zoo-like playground, but akin to a modern-day amusement park that rivaled the top Southern California attractions of that time – Santa Catalina’s...
Throwback Thursday | The South Pasadena Lumber Company
At the turn of the century, trains stopped at the Santa Fe Station to offload lumber directly onto the property of South Pasadena Lumber Co.
Having a lumber company in the heart of South Pasadena...
Throwback Thursday | Rise and Fall of SPHS Original Buildings
The original $65,000 bond issue for a new high school easily passed with the required two-thirds majority. Shortly after, a second bond of $10,000 also passed to cover the skyrocketing cost of construction due...
Throwback Thursday | The Mission Street Markets
Today, we shop for groceries at Trader Joe’s, Vons, Pavilions, Bristol Farms, and Grassroots Natural Market. Back in the day, however, local residents frequented the A&P Market, Safeway (Alexander Building), and Model Grocery (Taylor...
