History of the Crescenta Valley
The land now known as Crescenta Valley was originally inhabited by Gabrieleno Indians and later settled by Don Jose Maria Verdugo, after whom the nearby mountains are named. In 1784, Verdugo was granted 36,000 acres by the Spanish Crown, uprooting many Tongva Indians (who were later called Gabrielenos by the Spanish
Missionaries). He eventually went bankrupt, and the homeless bandits and thieves who roamed the foothills, Gabrieleno Indians among them, became known as "verdugos". In the early 1880s Dr. Benjamin Briggs, a physician from Crawfordsville, Ind., made a worldwide search for an ideal climate and ultimately found his way to Southern California. He named the town after three crescents or mountain peaks (creciente is Spanish for crescent) he saw while looking out his window one day. It had been his desire to devote himself to horticultural pursuits and the establishment of a health resort, but Briggs did not live to carry out all his plans. However, many people interested in his ambitions became attracted to the area. Health workers and physicians soon established clinics. Sanitariums for asthmatics and other facilities for the sick were built. As Los Angeles grew in the '20s, the health sanitariums and homesteaders gave way to orchards, vineyards and resort homes. Nature punctuated the doldrums of the '30s with a massive flash flood that swept through the valley just after midnight on New Years Day of 1934, killing 40 people and leaving hundreds homeless. After the '40s, the Crescenta Valley began to enter mainsteam suburbia, farms giving way to tract homes. This process was finalized in the early '70s by the opening of the 210 Freeway, weaving the Crescenta Valley firmly into the fabric of Greater Los Angeles.