Sic Transit Eagle Rock

The 5 Line On Colorado Boulevard

5 Line sign around 1920. Eagle Rock City 1911-1923 (ERVHS)

George Diddock's real estate office is on the southwest Corner of Eagle Rock and Colorado in 1909. Both streets are still unpaved. The side of the College Inn building is visible on the right. In the center right the newly built Eagle Rock School is visible in the distance. On the left is the Los Angeles Railways trolley from downtown, heading for the end of the line at Townsend Avenue (Published in the Los Angeles Herald Sunday Magazine)

The Edwards and Winters building sits isolated on Townsend Avenue at the end of a widened, but still dirt, street. Behind us the Eagle Rock Road to Garvanza and Pasadena was small and unimproved. Long known as the Murfield block, it now houses Tritch Hardware. (Courtesy the Elena Frackelton Murdock family)

The business center at Eagle Rock and Colorado Boulevards had continued to grow in 1927 with the addition of the three story Ritchy Hardware building on Caspar, and the addition of a trolley waiting area in the center of the intersection, dubbed the "Merrie Go Round”. The concrete structure became a great obstacle to increased auto traffic and was removed in the mid-thirties. (ERVHS)

The intersection of Colorado Boulevard looking East from Eagle Rock Boulevard. The passenger boarding area is shown to the left of the tracks. (Southern California Railway Museum, Ray Younghans Collection)

The Trolley car accelerated due to gravity coming downhill from Townsend Avenue. It failed to make the turn and crashed into parked cars on Eagle Rock Boulevard near where Chipotle is now. (ERVHS)

The news story. (ERVHS, publication unknown)

The trolley car is shown near the end of the line at Townsend Avenue in 1946. The switch that allowed the car to return on the double tracked right of way is shown in the foreground. (Southern California Railway Museum, Ray Younghans photograph)

The streetscape looking East from Mt. Royal Drive is shown in 1946 (Southern California Railway Museum, Ray Younghans photograph)

The trolley tracks are removed in this view East from Mt. Royal Drive in June of 1946. (Alan Weeks photograph)

The trolley stop at Argus Drive looking West in March of 1948. The Safeway store on the left has become part of the Piller’s building, last occupied and remodeled by the Renaissance Arts Academy.(Alan Weeks photograph)

The same view at Argus Drive looking West in June of 1948. The track and the raised boarding area are removed. (Alan Weeks photograph)

5 Line Sign, probably near the end. (ERVHS)

The Glendale and Eagle Rock Railway

The opening day of the Glendale and Eagle Rock Railway was March 13,1909. Said to be a “wedding between Glendale and Eagle Rock.” This photo was taken looking southeast at the corner of Glendale Avenue and Broadway in Glendale. On the left is Motorman J. S. Alpine, then Conductor, John Marvel. Above the “X” is E. D. Goode, “the moving spirit behind the enterprise.” (LAPL Security Bank Collection)

E. D. Goode was a pioneer in both Eagle Rock and Glendale. It is unclear when he moved to Glendale. At the time of the railway’s founding the Los Angeles Herald stated, “ E. D. Goode can always be depended on to take a leading and active part in whatever is proposed for the upbuilding of Glendale.” He organized the Glendale Union High School to which Eagle Rock sent its students until Eagle Rock High School was built, advocated for the incorporation of Glendale and the building of the Pacific Electric Railway along the foothills. (Los Angeles Herald)

Elena Frackelton Murdock’s railway pass, issued by E.D. Goode. Mrs. Murdock recalled that Goode’s son Ray was the first successful birth among the English-speaking residents of the valley. (Murdock Family Collection, ERVHS)

A map of the Eagle Rock branch of the then Glendale and Montrose Railway. The railway played a vital part in the building of our city, delivering freight to Eagle Rock from the railhead in Glendale. It ran west from Brand on Broadway, jogged north on Glendale to Wilson, west to Broadway then Colorado to Eagle Rock Boulevard. In 1917 a rail spur was built running south, parallel to the boulevard, probably along the alley behind the stores. A small station may have been built along this line but no record of its location has been found. (Southern California Railway Museum)

Frank Hilliard posed in the door of the streetcar on Broadway in Glendale headed toward Eagle Rock. E. D Goode’s son Ray stands by on the street. The building in the background was the Glendale Sanitarium, ancestor of todays Glendale Adventist Medical Center. It was built as the Glendale Hotel in the center of Glendale at the height of the boom of the 1880’s. It also served as St. Hilda’s Academy, an Episcopalian High School and the first Union High School, serving Glendale, Eagle Rock and several other small communities. (Glendale Public Library)

The streetcar, headed toward Glendale, is shown in front of the station on Glendale Avenue. (Los Angeles Herald)

The Glendale and Montrose car to Eagle Rock has turned on Broadway from Wilson in the background. William Nagle stands at the corner. The bench advertises Eagle Rock Drug Co. “Buy your drugs ice cream sodas etc.” “Kodak supplies a specialty” (Glendale Public Library)

The streetcar heading toward Glendale in front of the Bessolo house at the top of the hill. The house, considerably remodeled, still exists. The four-story Colorado Terrace building now hides it. (ERVHS)

The streetcar heads west just past Ellenwood Drive. The sign advertises commercial lots on Colorado to be sold by Edwards and Winters. In later years, boys delighted in greasing the tracks, causing the car to slide backwards down the steep hill. (ERVHS)

In 1913 a longer extension of the line was constructed to connect Glendale to the burgeoning community of Montrose to the north. This shifted the focus of the railway to the longer branch. This map of the whole Glendale and Montrose Railway system shows the relative scale of the two branches and the route up the Verdugo canyon to Montrose. (Southern California railway museum / Ray Younghans Collection)

The caption reads “DING DONG-DINKEY – That was the name coined by foothills residents for the tiny trolleys that provided transit in La Crescenta as well as inter valley service to Glendale Montrose and Los Angeles (Eagle Rock ed.). Car No. 3 was one of four single specimens built in 1919 by the American Car Co. and is shown ready to bob along the center of Montrose Avenue at he Corner of Honolulu. The short line faded into history with the last runs on Dec. 30, 1930.” (Foothill Ledger)

“TROLLEY BARN IN MONTROSE- Yes, indeed! The streetcar barn shown in this historic picture is still located in Montrose, even though the famed red cars and tracks of the Los Angeles trolley system are long gone. The barn is on the property of the Anawalt Lumber and Materials Company and is now inside a larger structure constructed by Anawalt” This is the only remaining physical remnant of the Glendale and Montrose line. (Foothill Ledger)

This ad ran in the Eagle Rock Sentinel Twentieth Anniversary edition in March of 1930. Its text read in part “All through the years in fair weather and foul, the little car has operated, interchanging passengers between the two communities, counting up some 70,000 miles of operation annually.” Ironically, in August of that year the line petitioned successfully to abandon all of its lines. (Eagle Rock Sentinel)