Rancho el Rincon de San Pascual, the northeast corner of the fertile land once part and parcel of the San Gabriel Mission, was a sunny paradise for its mid-19th-century inhabitants, a perfect place to herd sheep and grow oranges. By the early 1870s its far-greater potential was obvious to a group of Midwestern settlers, who rechristened their village Pasadena, a Chippewa Indian name meaning “Crown of the Valley.” A tourist magnet since its beginnings as a warm-winter haven for snowbirds, the resort town boomed in the 1880s with its connection to Chicago via the Santa Fe Railroad. Learn More...