Part 5

The little wayside village of Calabasas marked our turning-point southward into the valley. Here a rude country inn sheltered by a mighty oak offers refreshment to the dusty wayfarer, and several cars were standing in front of it. California, indeed, is becoming like England in the number and excellence of the country inns—thanks largely to the roving motor car, which brings patronage to these out-of-the-way places. Southward, we pursued our way through the vast improvement schemes of the San Fernando Land Co. The coming of the great Owens River Aqueduct—which ends near San Fernando, about ten miles from Calabasas, carrying unlimited water—is changing the great plain of San Fernando Valley from a waste of cactus and yucca into a veritable garden. Already much land has been cleared and planted in orchards or grain, and broad, level, macadam boulevards have been built by the enterprising improvement companies. And there are roads—bordered with pines and palms and endless rows of red and pink roses, in full bloom at this time—destined some day to become as glorious as the famous drives about Redlands and Riverside. Bungalows and more pretentious residences are springing up on all hands, many of them being already occupied. The clean, well-built towns of Lankershim and Van Nuys, situated in this lovely region and connected by the boulevard, make strong claims for their future greatness, and whoever studies the possibilities of this fertile vale will be slow to deny them. Even as I write I feel a sense of inadequacy in my descriptions, knowing that almost daily changes are wrought. But no change will ever lessen the beauty of the green valley, guarded on either side by serried ranks of mighty hills and dotted with villages and farmhouses surrounded by groves of peach, apricot, and olive trees. On this trip we returned to the city by Cahuenga Pass, a road which winds in easy grades through the range of hills between the valleys and Hollywood.

Another hill trip just off the San Fernando Valley is worth while, though the road at the time we traversed it was rough, stony, and very heavy in places. We left the San Fernando Boulevard at Roscoe Station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, about four miles beyond the village of Burbank, and passing around the hills through groves of lemon, peach, and apricots, came to the lonely little village of Sunland nestling beneath its giant oaks. Beyond this the narrow road clings to the edges of the barren and stony hills, with occasional cultivated spots on either hand, while here and there wild flowers lend color to an otherwise dreary monotone. The sweet-scented yucca, the pink cactus blooms, and many other varieties of delicate blossoms crowded up to the roadside at the time of our trip through the pleasant wilderness—a wilderness, despite the proximity of a great city.

A few miles brought us to the projected town of La Crescenta, which then had little to indicate its existence except numerous signs marking imaginary streets. Its main boulevard was a stony trail inches deep in sand and bordered by cactus and bayonet plants—but it may be different now, things change so rapidly in California. Beyond this we ran into some miles of highway in process of construction and had much more rough going, dodging through fields, fording streams and arroyos, and nearly losing our way in the falling twilight. Now a broad, smooth highway leads down Verdugo Canyon from La Canada to the pleasant little town of Glendale—a clean, quiet place with broad, palm-bordered streets—into which we came about dusk.

To-day the tourist may make the journey I have just described over excellent concrete roads, though he must make a short detour from the main route if he wishes to pass through Sunland. He may continue onward from Sunland following the foothills, crossing the wide wash of the Tujunga River and passing through orange and lemon groves, interspersed with fields of roses and other flowers grown by Los Angeles florists, until he again comes into the main highway at San Fernando town. Though the virgin wilderness that so charmed us when we first made the trip is no longer so marked, this little run is still one of the most delightful jaunts in Los Angeles County.

Los Feliz Avenue, by which we returned to the city, skirts Griffith Park, the greatest pleasure ground of Los Angeles. Here are more than thirty-five hundred acres of oak-covered hills, donated some years ago by a public-spirited citizen and still in the process of conversion into a great, unspoiled, natural playground for people of every class. A splendid road enters the park from Los Feliz Avenue and for several miles skirts the edge of the hills hundreds of feet above the river, affording a magnificent view of the valley, with its fruit groves and villages, and beyond this the serried peaks of the Verdugo Range; still farther rise the rugged ranks of the Sierras, cloud-swept or white with snow at times. Then the road plunges into a tangle of overarching trees and crosses and recrosses a bright, swift stream until it emerges into a byway leading out into San Fernando Boulevard.

This road has now been extended until it crosses Hollywood Mountain, coming into the city at the extreme end of Western Avenue. It is a beautifully engineered road, though of necessity there are some "hairpin" turns and moderately steep grades. Still, a lively car can make the ascent either way on "high" and there is everywhere plenty of room to pass. No description of the wonderful series of views that unfold as one reaches the vantage points afforded by the road can be adequate. These cover the San Fernando Valley and mountain ranges beyond, practically all of the city of Los Angeles and the plain stretching away to the ocean—but why attempt even to enumerate, since no motorist who visits Los Angeles will be likely to forget the Hollywood Mountain trip.

The crowning beauty of Griffith Park is its unmolested state of nature; barring the roads, it must have been much the same a half century ago. No formal flower beds or artificial ponds are to be seen, but there are wild flowers in profusion and clear rivers and creeks. There are many spreading oak trees, underneath which rustic tables have been placed, and near at hand a stone oven serves the needs of picnic parties, which throng to Griffith Park in great numbers. One day we met numerous auto-loads of people in quaint old-time costumes, which puzzled us somewhat until we learned that the park is a favorite resort for the motion-picture companies, who were that day rehearsing a colonial scene.

While Griffith Park is the largest and wildest of Los Angeles pleasure grounds, there are others which will appeal to the motorist. Elysian, lying between the city and Pasadena, is second largest and affords some splendid views of the city and surrounding country. A motor camp ground for tourists has recently been located in one of the groves of this splendid park. Lincoln—until recently Eastlake—Park, with its zoological garden, lies along El Monte Road as it enters the city, while Westlake is a little gem in the old-time swell residence section now rapidly giving way to hotels, apartments and business houses. A little farther westward is the old-time Sunset Park, unhappily rechristened "Lafayette" during the war, a pretty bit of gardening surrounded by wide boulevards. Sycamore Park, lying along Pasadena Avenue between Los Angeles and Pasadena, is another well-kept pleasure ground and Echo Park, with a charming lake surrounded by palms and trees, is but a block off Sunset Boulevard on Lake Shore Drive. Hollenbeck Park on Boyle Heights in the older residence section east of the river, is very beautiful but perhaps the least frequented of Los Angeles playgrounds. A small tree-bordered lake set in a depression on the hill is crossed by a high arched bridge from which one has charming vistas on either hand.

Exposition Park on Figueroa Street, contains the city museum and picture galleries and offers to the public opportunity for many kinds of open-air recreation. The greatest interest here, however, is the wonderful collection of bones and complete skeletons of mighty prehistoric animals that once roamed the tropic plains of Southern California. These were discovered in the asphalt pits of Rancho La Brea, which lies near the oil fields along Wilshire Boulevard just west of the city. Remains of the woolly mammoth, the imperial elephant, larger than any now living, the giant ground sloth, the saber-toothed tiger, and many other strange extinct animals were found intermingled in the heavy black liquid which acted at once as a trap and a preservative. Great skill has been shown in reconstruction of the skeletons, which are realistically mounted to give an idea of the size and characteristics of the animals. After the visitor has made a round of the museum and read the interesting booklet which may be had from the curator, he may wish to drive out West Wilshire Boulevard and inspect the asphalt pits, which may be seen from this highway.

Nor should one forget the famous Busch Gardens in Pasadena, thrown open to all comers by the public-spirited brewer. If you can not drive your car into them, you can at least leave it at the entrance and stroll among the marvels of this carefully groomed private park. And if a newcomer, you will want to drive about the town itself before you go—truly an enchanted city, whose homes revel in never-ending summer. Is there the equal of Orange Grove Avenue in the world? I doubt it. A clean, wide, slate-smooth street, bordered by magnificent residences embowered in flowers and palms and surrounded by velvety green lawns, extends for more than two miles. In the past two decades the city has grown from a village of nine thousand people to some five times that number and its growth still proceeds by leaps and bounds. It has four famous resort hotels, whose capacity is constantly taxed during the winter season, and there are many magnificent churches and public buildings. Its beauty and culture, together with the advantages of the metropolis which elbows it on the west, and the unrivaled climate of California, give Pasadena first rank among the residence towns of the country.

And if one follows the long stretch of Colorado Street to the eastward, it will lead him into Foothill Boulevard, and I doubt if in all California—which is to say in all the world—there is a more beautiful roadway than the half dozen miles between Pasadena and Monrovia. Here the Baldwin Oaks skirt the highway on either side—great century-old Spanish and live oaks, some gnarled and twisted into a thousand fantastic shapes and others the very acme of arboreal symmetry—hundreds of them, hale and green despite their age.

I met an enthusiastic Californian who was building a fine house in the tract and who told me that he came to the state thirty years ago on his honeymoon and was so enamored with the country that he never returned east; being a man of independent means, he was fortunately able to gratify his predilection in this particular. With the advent of the motor car he became an enthusiastic devotee and had toured in every county in the state, but had seen, he declared, no spot that appealed to him so strongly as an ideal home site. Straight as an arrow through the beautiful tract runs the wide, level Foothill Boulevard, bordered by oak, pepper, locust, and walnut trees until it reaches the outskirts of Monrovia, where orange groves are seen once more.

About midway a road branches off to Sierra Madre, a quiet little village nestling in the foothills beneath the rugged bulk of Mount Wilson. It is famous for its flowers, and every spring it holds a flower show where a great variety of beautiful blooms are exhibited. Just above the town is a wooded canyon, a favorite resort for picnic parties, where nature still revels in her pristine glory. Mighty oaks and sycamores predominate, with a tangle of smaller trees and shrubbery beneath, while down the dell trickles a clear mountain stream. It is a delightful spot, seemingly infinitely remote from cities and boulevards—and it is only typical of many such retreats in the foothills along the mountain range which offer respite to the motorist weary of sea sands and city streets.

IV

ROUND ABOUT LOS ANGELES

It seems anomalous that our Far West—the section most removed from the point of discovery of this continent—should have a history antedating much of the East and all of the Middle West of our country. When we reflect that Santa Fe was founded within a half century after Columbus landed, and contests with St. Augustine, Florida, for the honor of being the oldest settlement within the present limits of the United States, the fact becomes the more impressive.

About the same date—June 27, 1542, to be exact—the Spanish explorer, Juan Cabrillo, sailed from the port of Navidad on the western coast of Mexico with two small vessels and made the first landing of white men within the limits of California at San Diego, in the month of September. A few days later he sailed northward to the Bay of San Pedro, and landed within the present boundaries of Los Angeles to obtain water. Indeed, if he climbed the hills overlooking the harbor, he may have viewed the plain where the main part of the city now stands. But he did not linger here; by slow stages he followed the coast northward as far as the present site of San Francisco, but did not enter the magnificent bay. On the homeward voyage he died near Santa Barbara in 1543, and the expedition returned to Mexico.

Thirty years later Sir Francis Drake sailed along the coast, but there is no record of his landing anywhere in the south. In 1602 Philip of Spain despatched a second expedition under Viscaino, who covered much the same ground as Cabrillo, though there is nothing to show that he visited the vicinity of Los Angeles. In his account of his voyage to the king he declared that the country was rich and fertile, and urged that he be made the head of a colonization expedition, but his death in 1606 brought his plans to naught.

For one hundred and sixty years afterwards no white man visited the present limits of California, though it was still counted a possession of the king of Spain. Not until the revival of Spanish colonization activities under Philip II did California engage the attention of Europe, and being—nominally at least—a Spanish possession, the king, with the co-operation of the pope, undertook to establish a series of Catholic missions along the coast. The enterprise was put in charge of Junipero Serra, a Franciscan monk of great piety and strength of character, and after long delay and much hardship, he arrived at San Diego in July, 1769. Missions had already been founded in the lower peninsula and upon these Father Serra planned to draw for priests and ecclesiastical equipment necessary in the establishments which he should locate in his new field of work. He did not proceed northward in regular order, for the second mission was founded at Monterey and the third at San Antonio.

This brings us to the point to which the foregoing is but the barest outline—the founding of the Mission of San Gabriel Archangel near the city of Los Angeles on September 8, 1771. Twenty-six years later to a day the second mission within easy reach of the city was established—San Fernando Rey de Espana, being the seventeenth of the twenty-one Franciscan religious houses on the California coast. The two missions near the city—San Gabriel, six miles to the east, and San Fernando, twenty miles northwest—will be among the first attractions to the motorist in roving about Los Angeles, and we visited both several times before undertaking our tour of the King's Highway. Each has much of interest and may well serve to create a desire for an acquaintance with the remainder of these romantic memorials of early days in the Golden State.

San Gabriel is a little, dust-browned hamlet nestling under giant pepper and eucalyptus trees, lying a half mile off the splendid boulevard that bears the same name. It has but a few hundred people and is quite unimportant in a business way. It is a quiet place, surrounded by the wide sweep of orange groves, and would attract little notice were it not for the plain, almost rude, structure that rears its heavy buttressed walls directly by the roadside. It is a long and narrow building of large square bricks, covered with stucco which has taken the hue of old ivory from the long procession of years that have passed over it. Along the top of the front wall is a row of moss-green bells, each in its arched stone niche, which still chime melodious notes at vesper time and which lend a peculiarly picturesque appearance to the unique facade. True, the mission has been much restored since the adobe walls of the original structure were reared in 1771. The winter rains, earthquakes, and hostile Indians, all wrought havoc on the building; the arched roof was thrown down by the quake of 1812 and was replaced by one of beams and tiles, which was later superseded by the present shingle covering. The elaborate ceiling was erected in 1886, but seems somewhat out of keeping with the severe simplicity of the original design.

It has been a parish church since the American conquest in 1846, though its old-time glory vanished and for a period it was almost forgotten. But the troops of tourists who came yearly to California rescued it from oblivion. The coming of the electric car, which clangs past its door, brought crowds daily; and when the motor arrived on the scene, old San Gabriel became a shrine of pilgrimage such as it never was in its palmiest days. Now a brown-robed priest welcomes you at the door, collects a modest fee—to be devoted to maintenance and restoration—and conducts you about every part of the ancient building. He leads you to the roof and shows you the bells at close range, and you may as a special favor be allowed to test their musical qualities. They are Spanish bells, older than the mission, and are looked upon by the fathers with a pride that verges on reverence. Then you will be shown the curios, the relics, paintings, vestments, old manuscripts, and books, some of doubtful value and authenticity and others of real antiquity and importance. You will be given a glimpse into the quiet burying ground, where many of the fathers are at rest and beyond which is the sheen of orange groves and the blue peaks of the Sierras. The monster grapevine that supplied the cellars of the old padres will not be overlooked and many rude utensils of early days may be seen scattered about the place. It is all very quaint and interesting, this bit of old-world mediaevalism transplanted to the new world by the western sea and about which has grown up one of the most enlightened and prosperous communities in the whole country.

You will be told as much of its story as you may wish to hear; how one time this fertile plain about the mission was tilled by the Indians whom the padres had instructed and partially civilized—at one time as many as five thousand of them. They raised vast herds of cattle, estimated from eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand, and twenty thousand horses and forty thousand sheep were numbered in their possessions at the height of their prosperity. Allowing for probable exaggeration, the wealth of the mission was undoubtedly great, reaching two million dollars in 1842. Shortly after, this was confiscated by the Mexican Government and the ensuing war with the United States marked the end of San Gabriel's prosperity.

When the town of Los Angeles was founded during the palmy days of the mission, a chapel was built there by the fathers and it stands to-day, time-stained and demurely unpretentious, in the midst of the bustling metropolis that has grown up around it.

But San Gabriel to-day has an added interest—the result of one of the happy inspirations which come periodically to Frank Miller of Riverside—in the Mission Play first given in the winter of 1910. It occurred to this loyal Californian that the romantic zeal and self-sacrifice that led to the foundation of the missions and the wealth of historic incident connected with their active career would furnish splendid material for a play—or, more properly, a pageant. The idea was presented to Mr. John S. McGroarty of Los Angeles, editor of the Pacific Coast Magazine, who combined the necessary qualities of historian and poet. He entered zealously into the plan and in due time the libretto was written. A playhouse was built—somewhat crude and cheaply constructed, it is true—directly opposite the old mission. It was not, however, inharmonious with the idea and spirit of the play and was surrounded by an open-air corridor or ambulatory containing small models of the twenty-one missions as they appeared in their most prosperous days. The actors were mostly local people who, during the performance, lived in the cottages of the village or near-by towns.

The play—or pageant—has but little plot, depending on scenic effect, rich in life and color, and on a wealth of interesting incident. We saw it during the first week of its performance and our only disappointment was the clearly inappropriate ending—but evidently the writer recognized this defect, for when we visited the play next season, the last act had been rewritten more in harmony with the spirit of the subject.

Before the play begins you are at liberty to saunter about the ambulatory to gain some idea of the subject with which it is to deal; the clang of a mission bell hanging over the stage will call you to your seat when the performance commences. Three figures pass like shadows in front of the darkened curtain before it rises—a crouching, fearful Indian, a fully accoutered and gaudily dressed soldier, representing the Spanish conquistador, and, lastly, the brown-robed priest bearing his crucifix—symbols of the three human elements with which the play is to deal. It proves more of an historical pageant than a miracle play—but, after all, what is Oberammergau but an historical pageant?—though it seldom occurs to us in that light.