foreword

Mike Manning was born in 1947 and raised in Altadena, California. He attended St. Elizabeth School, Eliot Jr. High, La Salle High, and Pasadena City College. He married Julie Ann Morgan of Arcadia and together they have 2 children they raised inAltadena. He is presently Vice Chairman of the Altadena Town Council and Past President of The Sheriff's Support Group of Altadena. His knowledge of Altadena, its people and its history is greatly heralded and well respected among Altadenans.
My interest in The Mount Lowe Railway stems from the fact that I was born and raised (literally) in the shadow of the Echo Mountain promontory. We always called it Mount Echo. From our vantage point of our north facing home with its broad bay window in the living room, the foothills of Altadena were a panorama of awe and majesty. Smack in the center of the panorama we could make out the castleated tower of what was the powerhouse of the Great Incline. There was a window opening in it, and I always fantasized myself standing in that window and looking down over Altadena.

In 1959, just before my 12th birthday, my Dad took my brothers and me up the three-mile Sam Merill Trail that wound its way to Mt. Echo. There it all was, a grand display of ruins to this point only twenty-two years abandoned. We had no idea what we were looking at. A powerhouse? What's a powerhouse? A big gear! What for? Cables and pulleys? I couldn't fulfill my fantasy of standing in the little window which ended up being at a third floor level…but with the floors gone.

The place abounded with rock walls, re-bar and concrete slabs. Even then, there was a broad scattering of bed frames, box springs, empty cans, broken dishware…in actuality a junkyard of stuff no one --- to this point --- had really put any interest in. They were artifacts of what? My dad knew little about it, he was from Butte, Montana. My mom was born in Los Angeles, and she had heard of it. But really, only a select few people knew anything about The Mount Lowe Railway at all.

We made the return trip via the slope of the Great Incline, which then still had its cross ties and idler pulleys in the ground creating a stair step sort of terracing that allowed us to descend the hellishly steep grade with relatively sure footing. That is, until we came upon the chasm created by the displaced Macpherson trestle. From there we were forced into a harsh cut in the hillside that took us down through briar and bramble. It dropped us out on the Rubio Canyon portion of the right of way, but too far off course to have come upon the ruins of the Pavilion. The trek left me in awe and wonder of the site. It left my poor father picking yucca pricks out of his back for a week.

At least once a year up until I graduated from high school I, and others, had made the hike to Mt. Echo. Eventually we climbed the canyon to Inspiration Point. And on a couple occasions we went all the way back to Granite Gate, and Crystal Springs where the Alpine Tavern once stood.

It wasn't until one day in 1974, while walking home near the corner of Las Flores Street and Lake Avenue, we peered over the large brick wall into the yard of Charlie Seims. The side yard was full of artifacts from the Railway. Our nosiness drew Charlie out of the house, and there at the curb, we had cemented our mutual enthusiasm over Mt. Lowe.

Charlie had moved here in 1954 from Chicago. After having taken only one trip to Mt. Echo, he became enthused with the historic appeal and had begun making it a life's mission to unveil the hidden story of the Mount Lowe Railway. He accomplished this with the publishing of his book, Mount Lowe, The Railway in the Clouds, which came out in 1976. It is probably the only book I have ever read from jacket flap to price tag. The story was all-absorbing to a local like me. In the same year Robert Petersen published his book, Altadena Golden Years, and my brother Tim acquired an autograph copy for me with the inscription, "…to the Mannings, Altadena's originals."

History never was my forte --- make it more my academic downfall. But as I grew older and could learn more about the history around me, the more sudden a walking encyclopedia of names and dates I became. My wife and I had opened a business in Old Pasadena in 1981, and the curiosity of its antiquity had me nosing around the Pasadena Historical Society with a passion to learn more about the area in which we were raised and worked. The whole thing lead back to a resurrected interest in the history of the Mount Lowe Railway.

In 1989 I was invited to join Altadena Heritage. My renewed interest in history had me looking into more local points of interest. Soon I was writing mini articles on the Altadena Town & Country Club, Altadena Library, Sheriff's Station, Fire Department, Davies Building at Farnsworth Park, and onward.

In 1993, I chaired the Scenic Mount Lowe Railway Centennial Celebration Committee. The celebration was held on July 4, 1993, but it was kicked off in February with the premiere of Mount Lowe: The Big Show, a two and a half hour slide presentation which I derived from the archives of the Pasadena Historical Society. This publication is a summary of that presentation, and I hope you enjoy it.