Mission grapevines

Benjamin Eaton is the brother in law of Don Benito "Benjamin" Wilson. They are acquainted through Wilson's business partner in real estate, Dr. John Griffin. Griffin and Wilson own the entire San Pascual Rancho. They are successful in selling the lower portion of the ranch to investors and settlers from the midwest, the Indiana Colony. This colony divides its land into parcels and build homes on them between the arroyo seco and Fair Oaks avenue. Eaton is good with water and convinces Wilson and Griffin he can bring water from the upper arroyo (by modern day JPL) down to the lands of the colonists and irrigate their small farms and orchards of oranges. The useless land above it was thrown in as part of the deal and from this acreage, Altadena would be born.

In 1880, there are fewer than 500 people in Pasadena and fewer than 50 in what would become Altadena. By 1890, when the Allens are running the Sphinx, Pasadena will grow to nearly 5000 in just one decade.

The land would be sold to the Albert Sydney Johnston family and named Fair Oaks in memory of matriarch Eliza's former Virginia ancestral home acres.