VERDUGO VIEWS:Before Glenoaks, there was Scholl
Before there was Glenoaks Canyon, there was Scholl Canyon. It was a remote, secluded place with hundreds of oak and sycamore trees lining the sides.
For many years, the canyon, between Glendale and Pasadena, was owned by ranchers and some of the land was planted in fruit trees.
Then, during the 1920s, it passed into the hands of financiers and then into the hands of a syndicate of Los Angeles men who subdivided it into half-acre and one-acre lots.
A March 1923 article, written for the Glendale Daily Press by Albert Marple, glowingly described the canyon.
“Nothing but a personal visit can bring to mind the wonder of that locality,” Marple wrote.
“One must actually see that beautiful hill-bordered gem to realize what it really is — to know its wondrous beauty and to taste of its unsurpassed charm.”
As the lots were laid out, engineers added bridle paths and roads and a 70-foot-wide extension to an already-existing Glenoaks Boulevard.
When the extension was first planned, it was intended to connect with Linda Vista Avenue in Pasadena. By the way, Glenoaks Boulevard was named for the oak trees then lining East Glenoaks. West Glenoaks was a later continuation of the same street.
One of the big selling points for the new development, some six miles from downtown Los Angeles, was the bridges then being constructed over the Los Angeles River. The bridges, at Broadway, Los Feliz and Glendale boulevards, Fletcher Drive and Hyperion, would open the way for commutes from L.A. and Hollywood.
A real-estate brochure from Glen Oaks Inc. (Walter P. Story, president, and Guy M. Rush, vice president) invited prospective buyers to call for a private car to take them through the property and view the lots, most of them from 1,000 to 1,500 feet in elevation.
“A welcome change for those who work each day in the city and come home each evening to this clear, cool air,” the brochure stated.
The new development offered “wonderful schools, modern retail establishments, first-run theaters and social organizations” in the fast-growing city of Glendale.
“It is but a five-minute drive to Brand and Broadway, the main business corner of Glendale.”
Fast and frequent Pacific Electric buses and electric cars provided connections with L.A.
Six golf courses were within 10 minutes drive of Glenoaks Canyon when it opened — Sunset Canyon in Burbank, Oakmont and Chevy Chase in Glendale, Flintridge in what is now La Cañada Flintridge and Annandale in Pasadena, along with the municipal golf course in Griffith Park.
Plus, the beaches were just a hour’s ride away. Miles of bridle trails were planned in the canyon, plus parks, picnic sites and panoramic viewpoints.
According to a March 1923 article, developers presented Glenoaks Park to the city at a barbecue.
The Frank Meline realty company promised to build a rustic clubhouse for a social and recreation center and to install an ornamental drinking fountain at a bubbling spring.
READERS WRITE
Doug Aitken, who lives on Henrietta Street, recalled the house built on Henrietta by the Biescar family.
“The Biescar house faces south and coming up La Crescenta Avenue there is a curb cut still visible today at Orange Avenue. A lane once led from there up to the Biescar house.”
Aitken lives in a house built down the street in 1924. Members of his family have lived in that house since 1949 and parts of it still have the original lap siding.
His grandfather helped remodel the home in the 1950s.
Aitken was among the first students to attend Rosemont Junior High, beginning in Winter 1961 and he was in the third class to graduate from Crescenta Valley High in 1965. He used to deliver the Ledger newspaper in the neighborhood. He recalled the Spike Jones Market, run by John and Ralph Greco, at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and La Crescenta. Their sister, Helen Greco, married the famous band leader and the store was named after him, Aitken said.
