L.A. as Subject's latest contribution to KCET's SoCal Focus blog looks at the early history of Pasadena, which this month celebrates the 125th anniversary of its incorporation as a city:
This month, the city of Pasadena turns 125 years old. Set ten miles northeast of central Los Angeles at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Crown City has been an important cultural center of Southern California since its incorporation on June 19, 1886. The days of sweet-scented orange groves and organized fox hunts have long since passed, but Pasadena's early history survives in the archives of L.A. as Subject member institutions.
Although the city was born in 1886, Pasadena as a community traces its origins to the 1875 founding of the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association, an agricultural cooperative carved out of Rancho San Pasqual. The colony of Indiana orange growers thrived, and its success fostered the growth of a settlement on its eastern flank, centered around the intersection of Colorado and Fair Oaks Boulevards. The community soon adopted the name Pasadena, derived from the Ojibwa (Chippewa) word for "of the valley." (The town's nickname was Crown of the Valley.)
Keep reading the full article on the KCET website.