City & Region

A short history

Before the Spanish arrived, the Hahamogna people lived in villages along the Arroyo Seco. Pasadena was incorporated as a city in 1886.

On 1 January 1890 members of the Valley Hunt Club held a mid-winter festival with a procession of flower-decked horses and carriages: the first Tournament of Roses. The Rose Parade is still held every New Year’s Day.

In 1891 Amos Gager Throop founded Throop University, which became the California Institute of Technology on 10 February 1920. In 1940 the Arroyo Seco Parkway opened, the first freeway in the West.

Science profile

Pasadena’s science rests on a few fields, each tied to an institution: planetary exploration and spacecraft communication (JPL), astronomy (Mount Wilson and Caltech’s observatories), seismology (Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory) and gravitational-wave physics (LIGO, co-managed by Caltech). The institutions are described on Institutes & Facilities.

The thread that runs through all of them is instruments: telescopes, seismometers, detectors and spacecraft built to measure what cannot be seen directly.

Arts and Crafts

Pasadena is also known for its architecture. The Gamble House, built in 1908 by the brothers Charles and Henry Greene, is an internationally recognised masterpiece of the American Arts and Crafts movement and a local, state and national historic landmark. It is owned by the City of Pasadena.

On the Atlas

Pasadena is the first stop on the Space route of the TheScience.fm Atlas, which links the places where spacecraft are planned, built and funded.