Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
Its population was 138,699 at the 2020 census, making it the 45th-largest city in California and the ninth-largest in Los Angeles County. Pasadena was incorporated on June 19, 1886, 36 years after the city of Los Angeles but still one of the first in what is now Los Angeles County.Anaheim (February 10, 1870) and Santa Ana (June 1, 1886) were incorporated before Pasadena and were in Los Angeles County until Orange County was separated in 1889.
Pasadena hosts the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade each New Year's Day.
History
Indigenous history Native Americans lived in the Los Angeles Basin for thousands of years. The earliest known inhabitants of present-day Pasadena and its surroundings were members of the Hahamog-na tribe, a branch of the Tongva Nation. They spoke the Tongva language, belonging to the Northern subfamily of the Uto-Aztecan language group.
Pasadena means "valley" in the language of the Ojibwe, a Native American tribe not local to the region. The name was chosen by American settlers from Indiana who would later move to the area.
Spanish era The Spanish first colonized the Los Angeles Basin in the 1770s as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, building the San Gabriel Mission and renaming the local Tongva people "Gabrielinos" or "Gabrieleños", after the name of the mission. Today, several bands of Tongva people live in the Los Angeles area.Gabrieleno/Tongva of San Gabriel
Mexican era In 1821, Mexico became independent of Spain, and California came under control of the Mexican government. In 1833, the mission lands were secularized and most of the lands in California were granted to private Mexican citizens in the form of ranchos. Present-day Pasadena was divided between Rancho San Rafael (lands west of the Arroyo Seco extending to present-day Burbank in the northwest to Glassell Park in the southwest), Rancho del Rincon de San Pascual, (present-day central Pasadena, Altadena, and South Pasadena), and Rancho Santa Anita (present-day east Pasadena, Arcadia, and Monrovia). Rancho del Rincon de San Pascual was so named because it was deeded on Easter Sunday to Eulalia Perez de Guillén Mariné of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel.
American era The last of the Mexican owners of Rancho del Rincon de San Pascual was Manuel Garfias, who retained title to the property through the American conquest of California in 1848 and statehood in 1850. Garfias sold sections of the property to the first Anglo settlers to come into the area: Dr. Benjamin Eaton, the father of Fred Eaton; and Dr. S. Griffin. Much of the property was purchased by Benjamin Wilson, who established his Lake Vineyard property in the vicinity. Wilson, known as Don Benito to the local Indians, also owned the Rancho Jurupa (Riverside, California) and was mayor of Los Angeles. He was the grandfather of WWII General George S. Patton Jr. and the namesake of Mount Wilson.
In 1873, Wilson was visited by Dr. Daniel M. Berry of Indiana, who was looking for a place in the country that could offer a mild climate for his patients, most of whom suffered from respiratory ailments. Berry, an asthmatic, concluded that he had his best three nights' sleep at Rancho San Pascual. To keep the find a secret, Berry code-named the area "Muscat" after the grape that Wilson grew. To raise funds to bring the company of people to San Pascual, Berry formed the Southern California Orange and Citrus Growers Association and sold stock in it. The newcomers were able to purchase a large portion of the property along the Arroyo Seco and on January 31, 1874, they incorporated the Indiana Colony. As a gesture of good will, Wilson added of then-useless highland property, part of which would become Altadena. Colonel Jabez Banbury opened the first school on South Orange Grove Avenue. Banbury had twin daughters, named Jennie and Jessie. The two became the first students to attend Pasadena's first school on Orange Grove.
At the time, the Indiana Colony was a narrow strip of land between the Arroyo Seco and Fair Oaks Avenue. On the other side of the street was Wilson's Lake Vineyard development. After more than a decade of parallel development on both sides, the two settlements merged into the City of Pasadena.
Resort town
The region drew people from across the country. In 1887, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway opened the Second District of the Los Angeles Division and began making stops at the Santa Fe Depot in downtown Pasadena. This triggered a real estate boom. Tourist hotels were developed in the city. Pasadena became a winter resort for wealthy Easterners, spurring the development of new neighborhoods and business districts, and increased road and transit connections with Los Angeles. In 1940, when the Arroyo Seco Parkway, California's first freeway, connected Pasadena to Downtown Los Angeles. By that time, Pasadena had become the eighth-largest city in California and was widely considered a twin city to Los Angeles.
The first of the hotels to be established in Pasadena was the Raymond (1886) atop Bacon Hill, renamed Raymond Hill after construction. The original Mansard Victorian 200-room facility burned down on Easter morning of 1895, was rebuilt in 1903, and razed during the Great Depression to make way for residential development. The Maryland Hotel existed from the early 1900s and was demolished in 1934. The world-famous Mount Lowe Railway and associated mountain hotels shut down four years later due to fire damage. Three hotel structures have survived, the Green Hotel (a co-op since 1926), the Vista Del Arroyo (now used as a Federal courthouse), and a residential tower of the Maryland at 80 North Euclid Avenue (a co-op since 1953).Thomas D. Carpenter, Pasadena: Resort Hotels and Paradise, March Sheldon Publishing (Azusa, California), 1984, pp. 147-169.
The American Craftsman era in art and design is well represented in Pasadena. The architectural firm Greene and Greene developed the style; many of its residences still stand. Two examples of their Ultimate bungalow are the masterpiece Gamble House and the Robert R. Blacker House, both designated California Historical Landmarks and enrolled on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Contemporary
World War II was a boon to Pasadena. Southern California became a major staging area for the Pacific War. High-tech manufacturing and scientific companies made the city their home, a trend that continued in the decades following the war, notably with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Tetra Tech, and Ameron International.
In the 1950s, Pasadena saw a steady influx of people from the Southern United States, especially African-Americans from Texas and Louisiana. Pasadena also began hosting a large immigrant community, particularly from China, Japan, Philippines, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Italy, Armenia, and India.
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, founded in 1884 in New York, opened its Pasadena campus in 1974. However, in 2001 the conservatory moved from Pasadena to Hollywood. Training actors for the stage in a two year program, the conservatory was the first school in the United States to offer professional education in the field of acting. Point Loma Nazarene University was located in Pasadena for many years before relocating to San Diego County, and retained the names Pasadena University and Pasadena College.
In 1969, the Pasadena Unified School District was desegregated, though the issue would continue to be fought in court for a decade. A year later, the 210 Freeway was built along a newly chosen route. The freeway's construction was controversial, as it caused the demolition of over a thousand homes, many historic, and many claimed that the route was designed to cut off the city's less wealthy neighborhoods.
Downtown Pasadena became dangerous in some parts and deserted in others, and incidences of murder and arson skyrocketed. Old Pasadena faced destruction as plans for new high-rise developments were drawn up, though they were mostly stopped by increasingly active preservation advocates. Pasadena suffered demographically as many residents moved for the nearby suburbs or the Inland Empire, causing an overall decrease in population. Despite these setbacks, many local artists and hipsters moved in to take advantage of low property values. Their legacy can be seen today in the Doo Dah Parade which began in 1976.
In 2014, several arrests were made involving an embezzlement scheme which stole an estimated $6.4 million from the city's Underground Utility Program.
In January 2025, portions of Pasadena were destroyed in the Eaton Fire.
Geography
The greater Pasadena area is bounded by the Raymond Fault line, the San Rafael Hills, and the San Gabriel Mountains. The Arroyo Seco, a major geographic feature and home of the Rose Bowl, flows from headwaters in Pasadena's towering Angeles National Forest greenbelt in the San Gabriel Mountains. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , over 99% of it land; 0.68% is water.
Climate
Pasadena has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa), with typically hotter summers and slightly cooler winters than nearby coastal areas. Its location relative to the San Gabriel mountains allows the orographic lift to add several more inches of rainfall per year than nearby areas. During the first few months of the year, Pasadena experiences cool to warm highs, typically in the upper 60s () to lower 70s (). Colder days are usually accompanied by heavier rain. By April, temperatures warm further, and rain tapers off significantly.
By May and June, rain is typically sparse, but the marine layer becomes more persistent. Locals have dubbed June "June Gloom" as it is the cloudiest month despite being the 3rd driest month. By July, the marine layer subsides as inland areas cool due to an increased monsoon flow. Heatwaves from July through October can be oppressive and lengthy. In addition, it rarely rains during the summer and fall months, and only does when the remnants of hurricanes and tropical storms pass by. In fact, some days in both July and August have never recorded rainfall. It is not impossible to go 6 months without measurable precipitation.
The average highest temperature recorded each year is around . The hottest heatwaves of the year usually occur in mid to late September. By late October, temperatures drop off. By November, Pacific storms return to Pasadena, bringing increasingly heavy rain and cooler weather. Along with them, however, are the Santa Ana winds. The Santa Ana winds can produce heat, high winds, power outages, tree damage and an increased wildfire threat whenever they strike. By December, lows typically drop into the 40s (below 10 °C) with the occasional reading in the 30s (under 5 °C and down to freezing). Highs remain around with heatwaves pushing temperatures into the mid-80s (around 30 °C). A high temperature of at least has been recorded on all 365 days of the year, with temperatures over possible April through early November.
Pasadena averages of rain a year, about more than nearby Los Angeles due to the orographic effect created by the San Gabriel Mountains. The wettest "rain year" was from July 1940 to June 1941 with and the driest from July 1960 to June 1961 with . Wet years are commonly associated with El Niño warm surface water in the eastern Pacific and dry years with La Niña cold water conditions. The most rainfall in one month was in February 1980. The most rainfall in 24 hours was on March 2, 1938.