Insurance in Altadena, California

Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately 14 miles (23 km) from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California. The population was 42,777 at the 2010 census, up from 42,610 at the 2000 census. Eaton then tried to sell the land for the partners, and in late 1873 helped broker a deal with Daniel Berry, who represented a group of investors from Indiana to purchase 4,000 acres (16 km2) of the rancho. Although this included the land of present day Altadena, they developed the 2,500 acres (10 km2) section further south into Pasadena. In 1881, the land that became Altadena was sold to the Woodbury brothers, John and Fred, who launched the subdivision of Altadena in 1887 just as Southern California's great land boom busted. The land remained mostly agricultural. However, several millionaires (mainly from Chicago) built mansions along Mariposa Street, and a small community slowly developed through the 1890s and into the new century. Benjamin Eaton (not to be confused with Coloradan politician Benjamin Eaton) first developed water sources from the Arroyo Seco and Eaton Canyon from the mid-1860s from his vineyard near the edge of Eaton Canyon. This made development of Altadena, Pasadena, and South Pasadena possible. He did the work for B.D. Wilson and Dr. John Griffin, who jointly owned the Mexican land grant of the Rancho San Pascual, about 14,000 acres (57 km2) that comprised the future sites of the three communities. They hoped to develop and sell part of this in a real estate scheme called the San Pasqual Plantation. It failed by 1870 despite the irrigation ditch Eaton engineered for the partners that drew water from around the site of present day Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Arroyo Seco. The failure had two main causes: few believed citrus or other crops could thrive so close to the mountains, and the land was relatively inaccessible. In 1880, Capt. Frederick Woodbury and his brother John Woodbury of Marshalltown, Iowa, purchased 937 acres (3.79 km2) known as the Woodbury Ranch. John Woodbury established the Pasadena Improvement Company in 1887 with a plot plan of residential development referred to as the Woodbury Subdivision. They contacted Byron O. Clark who established a nursery in the foothills in 1875 and had since moved away. He called his nursery "Altadena Nursery", a name he coined from the Spanish "alta" meaning "upper" and "dena" from Pasadena. Woodbury asked if he could use the name "Altadena" for his subdivision and Clark agreed. The name Altadena derives from the Spanish alta, meaning "upper", and dena from Pasadena; the area is adjacent to, but at a higher elevation than, Pasadena. The plot of the 2008 film Lakeview Terrace, starring Samuel L. Jackson, was based on real life events in Altadena involving an interracial couple, John and Mellaine Hamilton, and Irsie Henry, an African-American Los Angeles Police Officer.