1953 Map of Mt. Wilson

About this map

The San Gabriel Mountains rise sharply above the expanding urban landscape of the San Gabriel Valley, where the postwar growth of Pasadena, Altadena, and Sierra Madre meets the National Forest Boundary. This era of the early 1950s captures the transition of the mountain front from a resort destination to a communications hub, with TV Transmitters and an Observatory crowning Mt Wilson while the footprints of the Great Lowe Canyon Railway era remain at Mt Lowe (Site) and Echo Mountain (Site). Below the peaks, the residential grid is punctuated by major institutions like the Calif Institute of Technology and the Huntington Art Gallery in San Marino. The map records an intricate network of hiking camps such as Idlehour Camp and Sturtevant Camp, alongside the early water management infrastructure of the Santa Anita Dam and Eaton Wash flood control systems.