It is the thought of the unsolved mysteries and sublimities and beauties of these mountains—their inaccessibility, their remoteness—had it not been for the persevering efforts of Prof. Lowe. The dark curtain that had hung for ages over these craggy chasms, these phenomenal canyons, these magnificent forests, these abysmal depths and cloud piercing heights, these grottoes and glens, these solitary habitations of bird and beast would still be drawn down but for his enterprise and genius—thus shutting out a thousand delights to the multitudes who have already looked upon them, and the myriads in the coming century who are yet to rejoice in their glories.
[The Beauties of Mount Lowe.]
And no words of mine can express the charms, delights and beauties of Mount Lowe better than the following apt and eloquent summary by Dr. J. H. Barrows, of Chicago, the well-known President of the Parliament of Religions at the World's Fair, and later, until his lamented death, the honored President of Oberlin College, Ohio:
"Thousands of trees grow out of its sold granite slopes; soft mountain breezes sing luring songs to the trees, the birds reply in a perfect ecstacy of liquid melody, the cataracts here and there dash and boom in accompaniment, and the rippling streams gossippingly carry the joyous news of the mountain heights and solitudes to the sweet mesas and plains below.
"Four varieties of scenery are here combined: The beautiful San Gabriel Valley pastoral scene; the sublime ocean and pearl-like island views; the Alpine, Swiss, Norwegian and Himalayan effects, the circle of magnificent peaks from San Antonio to San Jacinto. Here we have Italy and Switzerland, both together! Snow and orange groves! Icicles and heliotrope! Sleigh-riding and rose gardens! Toboganning and humming birds! Skating and butterflies! Snowy mountains and pearly faced ocean, hazy islands and Eden's garden, all held in the bottom of God's hand, in the sight of one man's eyes, at one and the same moment!"
[Other Picturesque Trips on the Pacific Electric Railway.]
It was from Mount Lowe that the President of the Pacific Electric Railway gained his first insight or "oversight" of the vast possibilities of the region in and around the city of Los Angeles. When it was suggested to him that the time was not far distant when the whole of this region, from the mountains to the sea, would be threaded over with electric railways, he was inclined to regard the suggestion as chimerical. Time has made his the hand to perform the improbable. Nowhere in the civilized world is such a suburban and interurban system of electric railways to be found as radiates from the city of Los Angeles to the cities, towns, seaside and mountain resorts of this portion of Southern California. Visitors to the Mount Lowe Railway should request the conductors to point out from the summit of Echo Mountain the location of the following places.