Eaton Canyon Park -- 1932 Plan

After a really long time, 1932 and 1967 plans for an Eaton Canyon/Wash park are getting some well deserved attention. This is the 1932 plan reprinted from Pasadena's park master plan the council approved last year. You may not recognize many of the streets and proposed streets on the plan. To get oriented, it helps to find Orange Grove Blvd. or the then-planned Eaton Wash Reservoir and work out from there.


The gist of the 1932 plan was simple -- to reserve the areas around the reservoir, the Eaton Wash and Edison right of way as open space and to build a scenic roadway starting at the dam and running south to San Pasqual. However, the plan never caught on.

The following gives some background to the '32 and '67 plans and is from the city's Green Space, Recreation and Park Element and Master Plan:

“A system of channels, roads, dams, recharge basins and other flood control infrastructure bisects the eastern area of the city. In 1932 the potential use of these areas for recreation was documented in a plan entitled "Eaton Canyon Park". This plan proposed a system of park areas extending from the mouth of the canyon to the southern City limit. These areas were to form a continuous band of open space areas, similar to the Arroyo Seco, albeit on a much smaller scale.

In December 1967, Ronald B. Townsend, the City’s Director of Parks, approved a plan entitled "Eaton Canyon Area Development". This plan also proposed an interconnected system of parks and open space areas along the Eaton Canyon drainage. The proposed improvements were laid out in great detail and connections with the city’s existing park facilities, such as Victory Park and Eaton-Blanche Park, were included. This Master Plan revisits this concept and offers recommendations for implementation measures that would fulfill a portion of the vision that was expressed in the 1932 and 1967 plans.”