Duarte Bike Trail, 1924

That is Royal Oaks Drive to the right, and to the left is Royal Oaks Drive North. What this photo does is tell us what that path was back in 1924.  It was a flood channel.  From where though?  From Bradbury foothills I believe, from above the Royal Oaks Manor and then from Mt. Olive basin.  Later it became the path for the Pacific Railway.  I remember those tracks vividly.  When I walked to Immaculate Conception or to Royal Oaks School, I would always step on the track's ties.  It was fun.  And the tracks used to run out to the San Gabriel Riverbed, over the famous train bridge and on out into Azusa and Cucamonga.  The tracks passed behind houses that lined the south side of Royal Oaks Drive into the Fish Canyon neighborhood.  Years after those tracks had been decommissioned, Tom and I hiked back through there all the way out to the riverbed.  We may have taken our family dog, Tommy.



 
From the Alan Weeks Collection.  Pacific Electric car no. 750 is captured under an arched bridge at Highland Avenue in Duarte on the Glendora Line in this image dated September 15, 1951.



That is THE Train Bridge in East Duarte heading west behind the homes on Royal Oaks Drive.  Note the rock quarry behind it to the right.  That's the train bridge.  Wow!  There's no fence.  This shot was taken on March 6, 1951.  It's from the terrific Weeks Collection.

 
 Huntington Drive looking west into Duarte.  Here that Huntington Bridge is a 2-lane highway; today has 4 lanes.  Look at how empty the foothills are; that, and how empty Bradbury is.  I don't have a year for this.  Probably 1930 or earlier.