Fair Oaks Avenue (Pasadena, California)
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Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, California is a major north-south road connecting the communities of Altadena, Pasadena, and South Pasadena. It starts at its southernmost end in South Pasadena at Huntington Drive and the former Oneonta Station of the Pacific Electric Railway Red Car system. It travels due north for almost 12 miles to a terminus above Loma Alta Ave. in Altadena and the gates of Angelus County Park. Beyond this the road becomes a private easement.
At its meeting of Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena the two roads become the zero-zero, east-west, north-south postal division of Pasadena which carries on into Altadena. In South Pasadena, the street numbering varies with its own postal zip code.
Fair Oaks is one of the major roads developed by the Indiana Colony dating back to 1874. It was apparently named for one of Pasasdena’s earlier ranches, the Fair Oaks Ranch, named by the widow of General Albert Sidney Johnston for her Virginia home. It led up from Raymond Hill and north to Washington Boulevard where it met the Painter Hotel. There being little reason to travel more northward, the road dwindled to a watery footpath and meandered through about three miles of scrub growth until a similar road picked up in the Altadena Community.
At a point of today's 210 Freeway, there was a fork in the road that veered obliquely to the northwest. This was an access to the greatest local water source in Millard Canyon, and was named New Fair Oaks Road. Eventually this road was renamed Lincoln Avenue and Old Fair Oaks Road just became Fair Oaks Avenue.
One of the necessary uses for Fair Oaks all the way into Altadena was, and stll is, access to the only legitimate cemetery in the area, Mountain View Cemetery.
Long considered the center of town, the corner of Colorado and Fair Oaks lost its centrality by the ever eastwardly expansion of the city. But now it has regained its central position as one of the most attractive corners in the upscaled Old Town Pasadena sector.
