Echo Mountain House (site)

 hotel, ruins, interesting place, historic landmark

Atop Echo stood the magnificent 70-room Victorian hotel, the Echo Mountain House. It was completed in November 1894 the 80-room Victorian "Echo Mountain House" was completed as a luxury facility to rival the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego.

The hotel was reached by a section of the Mount Lowe Railway known as the Mountain Division. Opened on 4 July 1893, the railway consisted of nearly seven miles of track starting in Altadena, California at a station called Mountain Junction. The railway climbed the steep Lake Avenue and crossed the Poppyfields into Rubio Canyon. At this juncture stood the Rubio Pavilion, a small 12-room hotel. From there the passengers transferred to a cable car funicular which climbed the Great Incline to the top of the Echo Mountain promontory.

The complement of buildings on Echo included car barns, dormitories and repair facilities, a casino and dance hall, and a menagerie of local fauna. Passengers could then transfer to another trolley line, the Alpine Division, which would take them to the upper terminus at Crystal Springs and Ye Alpine Tavern, a 22-room Swiss Chalet hospice with a complement of amenities from tennis courts, to wading pools, to mule rides.

Lowe also installed a 16-inch telescope and observatory on Echo, as he was a patron of the astronomical arts. He even sought to have the Mount Lowe Railway considered the astronomical center of the San Gabriels. He was able to enlist astronomer Dr. Lewis Swift, whose reputation preceded him. Given the heavens not yet being disturbed by city lights, Swift was able to discover some 95 new nebulae from the Echo vantage point.

The hotel burned to the ground in February 1900 and was never rebuilt.

www.aaaim.com/echo/v4n4/v4n4EchoMountainHouse.htm