Echo Mountain House

1894-1900

By Jake Brouwer

I suppose we all subscribe to our own particular tastes in life, and as for me on this fine blustery evening in southern California, I managed to subscribe to the best that life has to offer. Nearly three months of scrimping and saving coins in an old cigar box, has led me to this finery on, February 4th 1900. A weekend of rest and relaxation in one of the finest resort hotels in the world, the Echo Mountain House, yes, that was certainly the ticket.

There was a wonderfully soft breeze, just a touch of winter in the air, as I sat on the veranda of the grand hotel overlooking Pasadena. I tilted back in my chair and tossed one leg over the other, up on the railing, and taking a puff on my cigar, I thought of life in the world below. I mused for hours, as it seemed a waste to go to bed, with this sparkling carpet below me. The soft music coming from the nearby Chalet lulled me near to sleep, when a gentleman with silver tipped cane tapped on my foot. I thought to myself, "It might be the Professor himself." It was Mr. Sattley, the house manager. "It's near midnight sir, and you're sure to catch your death of cold if you stay out much longer." He did not wait for a reply, but walked off down the length of the grand veranda.

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The Echo Mountain House Table

Mt. Lowe Soda Bottle.

By Michael Patris

After doing more and more research about the Mount Lowe incline one tends to go off on different tangents until the trail is cold. Such is the case with some of the things that were used at Echo Mountain House before the great fire burned it down in February of 1900.

Looking at photographs of tables set for dining at the top of the incline from photographic archives and personal collections one can see there is a certain pattern of dinnerware and flatware in use.

The flatware was a simple pattern and one wouldn't think twice about it until the fateful day the same style of flatware appeared and was back stamped Mount Lowe Ry. There is no disputing where this was used. Although it is very uncommon to find the flatware with the markings the same generic type is not an uncommon sight at flea markets

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Valley of Smokes

By Christopher Nyerges

Altadena resident Daniel Macpherson, stands at Echo Mountain, surveying the extent of the 1979 fire. In the foreground are burnt yucca plants.

In 1990, I was standing in the parking area, which leads down into Switzer's Camp. A land-management expert and I were standing there, talking, looking out over the sprawling terrain. My friend told me that due to the abundance of dead wood and other accumulated flammable material, the Angeles National forest was "ripe" for a massive fire. There years later, I recalled that sobering forewarning when I watched the firestorms rage through Southern California - including Eaton Canyon, and other front-country areas of the Angeles National Forest.

I recall years earlier in 1979 when Daniel McPherson and I hiked up to Echo Mountains a day after a fire "cleaned" the area. It was quite a sight. Yucca plants appeared as blackened pineapples, and they still smoked. All the underbrush was gone, and we could actually clearly see the outline of the old buildings that once resided there. Charred blackness was everywhere, yet it would be a matter of weeks before we had rains and a revival of the land.

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Postal address:
Land~Sea Discovery Group
PO Box 401904
Hesperia, Ca. 92340

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