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Hunting the Highlands<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ background_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0)” transparent_background=”on” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ use_custom_gutter=”on” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” width=”91%” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Hunting.jpg” title_text=”Hunting” show_in_lightbox=”on” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”11px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
By Michele Zack<\/p>\n
Careening on a jubilant bender through Los Angeles\u2019s muddy streets at Christmas, 1873, Southern-minded Dr. John Griffin chortled that he\u2019d finally got the best of those \u201cDamn Yankees!\u201d Anyone in earshot, including journalist Benjamin Truman (who wrote it down) learned that he\u2019d sold 4,000 dry acres up the Arroyo to a naive group of Iowans \u2014 land where \u201ca respectable jack rabbit wouldn\u2019t be seen.\u201d Shockingly, these fools paid him $6.60 an acre for it!<\/p>\n
The price was brought that low (from the point of view of Pasadena\u2019s founders) by Griffin\u2019s partner Don Benito Wilson, who threw in 1,400 extra acres at the last minute to seal the deal. This included the future Altadena in the outwash beneath the mountains.<\/p>\n
The claim about jack rabbits was pure hyperbole. It is well-documented that the land teemed with wildlife\u2014 particularly jack rabbits! Many seasonal rivulets and canyon water sources in the late 19th century supported food supplies for deer, puma, bears, gophers and other small mammals, and birds such as quail. Fish were prevalent in canyon streams. Boys and young men coming to the new settlements arrived with, or soon developed, hunting skills \u2014 walking miles and spending days to track and bring home mostly rabbits for the family pot.<\/p>\n
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Alice Eaton Smith remembers brothers Will and Ben Eaton \u201cloved to go hunting for jack rabbits in the hills and they brought back the cottontails, too.\u201d Alice was familiar with this abundance; her family had lived by the mountains at Fair Oaks Ranch next to what is today called Eaton Canyon, since the end of the Civil War. Her father, Pasadena founder (not from Iowa) Benjamin Eaton understood the land\u2019s potential, brokered the deal with Griffin, and invested in it. When Alice was four years old the family moved south to be closer to schools, neighbors, and other marks of civilization appearing with the rush of educated Midwesterners to Pasadena. But her big brothers still headed to the hills to hunt.Before the move, Eaton always had concerns at Fair Oaks<\/p>\n
dealing with wildlife. He was determined to stop the elusive bear plundering his bee hives, and in 1879, awake one night with a \u201chowling toothache\u201d, set out with his old Sharps musket 50-70 single shot to hunt the culprit. He was startled to discover it was a Grizzly! By this time, Ursus arctos horribilis was uncommon here. After a first shot, with a very quickly loaded second he stopped him at a distance of 10 paces as the wounded animal charged. It took four men the next day to load the giant into a cart, and he was taken down to town. \u201cIn a few moments it seemed as if the whole population of Pasadena was gathered at Williams\u2019s store to see the bear\u2026 school was dismissed so the children would have a chance to see it. The animal measured 7 feet 10 inches, but weighed only about 500 pounds, for he was very poor\u2026\u201d Eaton recollected in Hiram Reid\u2019s 1895 History of Pasadena. More quotidian, Eaton reported killing 11 rattlesnakes his first year at Fair Oaks (1865), \u201cthree of them having 11 rattles each \u2014\u201d as well as various predators (brown bears, mountain lions, and wildcats) who found good eating in his livestock and garden.<\/p>\n
Levi and Luna Giddings and their son Eugene came here in 1874 with a large clan, and soon founded Mountain View Cemetery. They shared many pioneer hunting stories, as did the hunt-loving Britain William Allen, and the Woodburys. Giddings \u201calways kept hounds\u201d on his ranch (near the mouth of Millard Canyon), usually five or six, to keep down the chicken-stealing fox population. Levi related an incident in which his hound Cash treed four \u201cbig wildcats\u201d in a single tree. Giddings shot two, Cash attacked a third that jumped down from the tree, and a fourth sprang on the struggling duo. One cat escaped, and miraculously Cash survived, \u201cthough he was laid up for some time with the bites and scratches the cats gave him.\u201d Cash was with him one of Giddings first years here when \u201cI got 37 deer within two miles of the house\u201d<\/p>\n
It is difficult to grasp how quickly Pasadena and the coming of more genteel, often sick, Temperance-minded immigrants began changing both eco-systems and social landscapes. Most were less rough and ready than \u201cfamily pot\u201d hunters, who were hardly rustic bumpkins. In the 19th Century, being a jack of all trades was a survival skill: Eaton was a Harvard-trained lawyer and water engineer, Giddings an abolitionist whose uncle was in Congress, John Woodbury a banker and aesthete, and William Allen of the Sphinx Ranch had been a cotton broker in Egypt for 23 years. But many of the more religious among the new settlers frowned on growing wine grapes, the Highlands\u2019 (as Altadena was then known) chief crop\u2014 and most were city-bred folk who preferred to distinguish themselves by forming literary and arts societies, and in scientific, business, and social pursuits.<\/p>\n
Among this contingent was Bayard T. Smith, known as the \u201cChesterfield of Pasadena\u201d for his natty dress and impeccable manners. A publisher, Pasadena postmaster, political influencer, and real estate developer, he moved up from his Pasadena Oak Knoll Ranch to Altadena the year our community was founded, 1887, to a Fredrick Roehrig designed mansion he commissioned. On the northeast corner of Mariposa and Santa Rosa, it was the site of many highbrow social events, and also the first informal meeting of the Valley Hunt Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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This club marked the social ascendance of \u201csport\u201d over \u201cfamily pot\u201d hunting, though the latter variety continued until real estate and agricultural development gradually squeezed out game. Members of the Valley Hunt Club held hunts and elevated social occasions, and introduced gentler alternatives to earlier rabbit rousts where one\u2019s seat on a horse (or even having a horse) was less appreciated than ebullience and colorful storytelling. Among the new civic entertainments cooked up by the Valley Hunt Club was a \u201cTournament of Roses\u201d featuring a Rose Parade, and an organization (for years limited to 100 members) offering social advancement and female influence. A popular but short lived \u201cGladiator Race\u201d where toga-dressed contestants in chariots galloped around a ring in the Arroyo revived the earlier spirit, but was discontinued as too wild and dangerous to co-exist with the floral parade. Within a few years, the blood-sport crowd had football games to satisfy that particular lust.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Hunting-1889.jpg” title_text=”Hunting-1889″ show_in_lightbox=”on” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”11px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
The story is that a group of Bayard\u2019s pals were hunting the wilds of Altadena soon after his grand residence was built. A fierce storm broke out, Smith wasn\u2019t at home, so they broke in. While enjoying this shelter and warmth, they decided to form a British-style hunt club to promote \u201cthe hunting of jack rabbit, fox, and other wild game with horse and hound.\u201d The group (significantly, women made up half the original members) included McNallys, Greenes, Banberrys, Bandinis, Staats, Carters, and others from prominent families. It formally organized in Pasadena in1888.<\/p>\n
Hunting the wilds of Altadena decreased as people settled here and homes, vineyards, roads, railways, piped water, and other development impacted wildlife habitat. In the early 20th century, new animals were introduced, including possums and squirrels, for hunting and eating, but never took off. While killing certain animals is still allowed (either by permit to hunt, or by other means if the critter is categorized as invasive or a \u201cnuisance\u201d), shrinking open space and shifts toward nature preservation have all but ended the practice. Co-existing with wildlife, appreciating what we have left, and sharing our environment are today\u2019s cultural norms. Shopping at grocery stores replaced more time consuming, strenuous forms of hunting and gathering. People unhappy with nuisance wildlife today tend to use traps for control, which is reasonable, and poison, which is not \u2014 because it goes on to sicken and kill birds and other animals eating poisoned carcasses.<\/p>\n
Those who hunt in the 21st Century mostly travel far, even out of state, or to the Pacific Ocean to do it. One backyard vintner in Altadena did for a time hunt invasive fox squirrels ravaging his grapes, tossing his prey into the freezer until enough accumulated for a casserole. But for every one downed, another popped up to claim the decedent\u2019s territory \u00ad\u2014 so he gave up. There were a few bow-and-arrow, or cross-bow hunters going after deer in our foothills. The most famous was a fellow styling himself Ram-bow \u2014 but he and others were pursued and chased off by locals with smart phones and safety concerns.<\/p>\n
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