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 | South Pasadena: Most Photographed Small City in America
When I first settled my family in South Pasadena about 20 years ago, I got excited about its colorful history and small-town charm. I...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Throwback Thursday | Field of Dreams at Local Pasadena Ballpark
Baseball has long been a favorite in the communities bordering the Arroyo Seco. Ball clubs were first organized based on local employment. The Raymond...
Throwback Thursday | Famous Firsts in South Pas History
In this week’s Throwback Thursday, we will honor four “famous firsts” in South Pasadena history. They are quite remarkable concerning the relative small size...
Throwback Thursday | Famous Women in South Pasadena History
Apostle of the Cacti
Minerva Hoyt
Minerva Hamilton Hoyt was a South Pasadena socialite whose infant son died, and she felt compounded loss after her husband,...
Throwback Thursday | The Other Bridge
In a couple of weeks on July 18th, the historic Colorado Street Bridge will close to automobiles for its annual bridge party. In perfect...
Throwback Thursday | Swami Vivekananda Visits South Pasadena
Swami Vivekananda was a well-known spiritual leader in India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. He traveled to America in 1900, staying at...
Throwback Thursday | The South Pasadenan
In 1893, George W. Glover founded South Pasadena’s first successful newspaper, South Pasadenan.
He ran the paper for 15 years during the fledgling municipality’s formative years....
Throwback Thursday | Revisiting Our Racist Past
There was a time in our not-so-distant past when racism prevented or restricted American citizens of color from employment opportunities, property ownership, access to...
Throwback Thursday | Brown Boys Were Local Heroes
Brothers Jason and Owen Brown were veterans of the anti-slavery fight who homesteaded on a hillside plateau near the Arroyo Seco. In 1885, they...
Throwback Thursday | World Famous Lion Farm in El Monte
Gay’s Lion Farm in El Monte was a popular local area tourist attraction from 1925 to 1942, located at the southeast junction of Peck...
Throwback Thursday | Heritage Lost: South Pasadena’s Orange Tree City Seal and Orange Blossom...
The city of South Pasadena was founded in 1888 during the agricultural citrus boom in Southern California. The area was once abundant with orange...
Throwback Thursday | The Fight
This week’s feature concludes our look back at our city’s unique 125-year history at the “crossroads” of a myriad of competing public transportation and...
Throwback Thursday | The Arroyo Seco Parkway
The Arroyo Seco Parkway was opened on December 30, 1940, becoming the first freeway in America west of the Mississippi. It became a vital...
Throwback Thursday | South Pasadena: A Transportation Corridor
By the 1920s, South Pasadena had become a major transportation corridor between Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley. South Pasadena had five separate...
Throwback Thursday | The Rise of Personal Motorized Mobility
At the turn of the century, gasoline-powered motors fit easily into beefed-up frames of bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. And within a decade, motorized bicycles...
Throwback Thursday | California Cycleway in 1900
During the late 1800s, Horace M. Dobbins was listening to the crazed bicycle public. When Dobbins started the California Cycleway Company in 1897, he...
Throwback Thursday | Bicycle Crazy Pasadena 120 Years Ago
In 1898, hundreds of bicycles paraded down Colorado Boulevard in a show of force to impress city officials and planners that road improvements and...
Throwback Thursday | Former First Lady Garfield Dies Here 100 Years Ago This Month
After a disgruntled office seeker assassinated President James A. Garfield, Lucretia Garfield was forever known as the “widow of the martyred President.” Her popularity...
Throwback Thursday | When Dr. Sun Yat-sen Visited South Pasadena
South Pasadena resident Charles Beach Boothe code-named “Red Dragon,” in effect, was treasurer of a revolution raising over 9 million dollars for the cause....
Throwback Thursday | South Pasadena’s First Fighters Were Tree Huggers
Before South Pas residents were known as “freeway fighters,” they earned their chops fighting the city to protect its trees. On August 18, 1950,...
