How a Former Lake Became Lacy Park

Many out-of-towners who visit the Pasadena and San Marino area and happen to drive up Lake Avenue often ask, "Where's the lake?" Once a naturally occurring body of water at the site of present-day Lacy Park, by the early 20th century, the lake after which the street is named had dried up into a swampy morass due to excessive water usage by local settlers.

Fed by springs and streams that flowed down from the mountains, the lake once provided water for the Gabrielino-Tongva people who inhabited the area. When the Spanish missionaries came to the area in the 1770s, they also took advantage of its resources, eventually damming the lower end of the lake to power a saw mill, wool works and tannery and using it as a drainage area for water pumped through their , which they constructed in 1816.

In its early days, the lake was an idyllic oasis in the San Gabriel Valley. As recounted in Midge Sherwood's history of the area, San Marino: From Ranch to City (San Marino Historical Society, 1977), one visitor from Boston in 1828 described the lake as “one of the fairy spots to be met with so often in California.”

The fate of the lake was forever altered, however, when a Tennessee native named Benjamin D. Wilson (aka "Don Benito") purchased a large part of the Rancho San Pasqual tract in 1854, including the lake, which he renamed after himself and used to irrigate his vineyards.

This began an incremental drying up and stagnation of the lake that was accelerated when Wilson went into business with his son-in-law, Maryland transplant , and expanded his winemaking enterprise, channeling water from the lake into irrigation and selling water rights to other settlers.

Known in a later period as Kewen Lake, (after Col. E.J.C. Kewen), by 1900 the lake had shrunk and had become a popular swimming hole for George S. Patton and his friends. By 1924, the lake was a boggy marsh, and the city of San Marino decided it would better serve the public as a park.

“As communities began to grow up, the water table shrank,” explained Cathy Brown, executive director of the Old Mill. “It just got to be a mushy, messy place.”

Enough moisture remained to present a serious problem for the park's planners, but according to Brown, a convenient solution presented itself. “When they were excavating a couple of the early buildings at Caltech [in the 1920s], they brought the dirt down and filled in the lake.”

San Marino city councilman William Hertrich, who had studied horticulture in Germany, drew up plans for the park in 1925, envisioning it as both botanical garden and public recreation area. Rare plants were donated by Henry Huntington from his estate, and 12 elegant acres of lawn, rose bushes, vines, shrubs and trees were laid out.

Hertrich was assisted by Armin Thurnher, who became the park's first superintendent when it opened to the public in 1926. (The Thurnher House is named after him and is today the home of the San Marino Historical Society.)

When it came time to name the park, the community voted that it should be named after Richard H. Lacy, who had just been elected mayor of San Marino. Fittingly, Lacy’s original line of work was the manufacture of iron water tanks and pipes, which he produced with his brother, William, as the Lacy Manufacturing Co. He served as mayor until 1942.

Today Lacy Park is a popular picnic spot, and draws families not only from San Marino, but also from neighboring communities. It is particularly popular each year on the Fourth of July, when fireworks are set off on the park's expansive grounds.

Gone are the tranquil waters that gave a nearby Pasadena street sign its name—one that so often prompts the question, "What lake?"