Traditional narrative Above Devil's Gate, the rapids of the Arroyo Seco are positioned so that the falls make a beating, laughing sound. In
Tongva-Gabrieliño traditional narratives, this is attributed to a wager made between the river and the
coyote spirit.
Early settlement The Arroyo Seco was one of the Los Angeles River tributaries explored by Gaspar de Portola in the late summer and fall of 1770. He named the stream Arroyo Seco, for of all the canyons he had seen, this one had the least water. During this exploration he met the Chief
Hahamog-na (Hahamonga) near Millard Canyon, at the settlement later known as
Hahamongna, California. This band of the
Tongva Indians would end up gathered into the fold of the
San Gabriel Mission and with other bands and tribes collectively called "Gabrielenos". The Arroyo Seco region can be considered by historical accounts as the birthplace of Pasadena. After the 1820s secularization of the Missions, the broad area to the east of the Arroyo was the
Mexican land grant of
Rancho San Pascual, present-day
Pasadena, California.
Manuel Garfias was the grantee of the Rancho and its longest early resident. His
adobe house was on the east ridge of the Arroyo, in present-day
South Pasadena. With the 1874 establishment of the community of the
Indiana Colony, the new residents built their homes along today's Orange Grove Boulevard, the major north–south avenue paralleling the Arroyo on the east. However, the deep and seasonally flooded Arroyo presented a barrier to easy travel and transportation between renamed Pasadena and Los Angeles. Stories of four and five hours just crossing the chasm, whether exaggerated or not, abounded in Pasadena history. The first recorded American to live in the Upper Arroyo (north of Devil's Gate) was simply known as "Old Man Brunk". Brunk's cabin stood at a large bend in the canyon, roughly where the Forest Service housing is today. It was said he left
San Francisco "for that town's good".
Transportation corridor Dating back to the original
Tongva residents of the area, the Arroyo Seco canyon has always served as a major transportation corridor. Today it links downtown Los Angeles with Pasadena, the west
San Gabriel Valley and the
San Gabriel Mountains. - Highland Park and
Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad train in the Arroyo Seco with a Gold line Tram crossing By 1886 the
Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad had been established from Downtown Los Angeles with a grand wooden trestle that cut a straight line crossing from the west side to the east. The wooden trestle was replaced with the
Santa Fe Arroyo Seco Railroad Bridge. Eventually this line would hook up with rail lines built from the east to create the cross-country course of the
Santa Fe Railroad. For local commutes, an electric traction trolley was put in and operated by the
Pacific Electric Railway, a
Henry E. Huntington enterprise, which ran the "Red Cars" from the upper Arroyo and Pasadena through the San Gabriel Valley into Los Angeles and many points beyond. The lower Arroyo Seco was served by the
Los Angeles Railway "Yellow Car" lines. In 1900
Horace Dobbins, Mayor of Pasadena, opened his innovative
California Cycleway, an elevated wood structure with a flat planked surface that would allow bicyclers to travel from Pasadena to Los Angeles avoiding the uncertain schedules of the early trains. Dobbins was only able to build a two-mile portion of the cycleway from the Green Hotel to Raymond Hill before competition from the railroads and the growing popularity of the
horseless carriage undermined the project. Present day cycling activists are reviving a vision and plan for a
dedicated bikeway from Pasadena to Los Angeles. The
Arroyo Seco bicycle path now runs from Highland Park to South Pasadena; the
Kenneth Newell Bikeway continues the route through Pasadena. In 1913 the
Colorado Street Bridge was dedicated. This structure curves across the Arroyo accessing
Eagle Rock,
Glendale, and the
San Fernando Valley. During the
Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the subsequent
Great Depression of the 1930s, the bridge was a jumping off point for many committing
suicide, whereby it received the ignoble name of "
Suicide bridge." By the 1980s the bridge fell into disrepair as chunks of concrete dropped from its face to the armory parking lot in the Arroyo below. In October 1989, the Colorado Street Bridge was closed as a precautionary measure in the aftermath of the
San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge failure in the
Loma Prieta earthquake. Eventually assistance from the Federal Bridge Repair and Replacement Fund and other local governmental agency discretionary funds provided funding for the complete restoration and
seismic retrofit of the bridge. The total project budget amounted to $24 million, and the Colorado Street Bridge was reopened on December 13, 1993, on time and on budget.
Arroyo Seco Parkway By mid-20th Century, the automobile had long become a mainstay of Southern California life. In 1940 the
Arroyo Seco Parkway, the first freeway, was built as a
parkway alongside the newly constructed flood channel in the Los Angeles portion of the Arroyo. Today, also known as the
Pasadena Freeway, it continues on through downtown becoming the
Harbor Freeway, and terminates near the harbor in
San Pedro. The Arroyo Seco Corridor Management Plan was completed for the "Arroyo Seco Parkway" in 2004. The Plan was created through a partnership with the
National Trust for Historic Preservation, the
National Scenic Byways Center (Federal Highways),
Caltrans (State Highways), the
National Park Service, the
Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and The Center for Preservation Education and Planning (CPEP Inc.). The Arroyo Seco Flood Control Channel, was built by the Works Progress Administration before and during construction of the parkway to avoid damages from future floods. ==Floods and controls==