A 1906 advertisement extolling South Pasadena, which...

A 1906 advertisement extolling South Pasadena, which had broken away from Pasadena two decades earlier, called the embryonic municipality “a quiet home among the native songbirds.”

Today however, the songbirds are frequently drowned out by the piercing cries of an alarmed citizenry fighting a highway expansion. Proud and protective South Pasadena residents continue their adamant opposition to a 6.2-mile, eight-lane link of Interstate 710 through the middle of town--the only city in the nation designated entirely as a historic place by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The 3.4-square-mile community between Los Angeles and Pasadena has enjoyed a reputation as bungalow heaven, with big front porches, a low crime rate, a top police force, excellent schools and a small-town atmosphere.

The Long Beach Freeway fight is not the first time residents have taken to the barricades. In 1888, developer Ralph Rogers began charging a toll on a road connecting South Pasadena with Los Angeles. He erected a barricade at the South Pasadena end and tried to collect the toll. Outraged residents balked and called in the sheriff, who took down the roadblock and let the horses and buggies through.

The reason for South Pasadena to seek cityhood emerged when taverns started springing up along Columbia Avenue--an affront to city founders, Midwesterners who were not necessarily prohibitionists but were opposed to saloons.

The town’s first mayor, Donald M. Graham, called a meeting to organize the cityhood effort, vowing that as mayor he would sign an anti-saloon ordinance as his first official action. But after the meeting he told his wife, “It would have been well to remove the wine glasses and whiskey bottle from the sideboard before meeting to organize a Prohibition town.”

The area was rustic enough for shepherds to graze their flocks in the Monterey Hills until

1962, when the city designated 309 acres for affordable housing. The tops of three hills were lopped off and the earth was used to fill in the canyons.

In the 1980s, city-funded dream condos, built on soil that turned to mush, began sinking.

After three years of arbitration, a $62.5-million settlement was reached with 770 homeowners in 1990.

The town that once fought barrooms with the slogan “A church or school on every hill, but no saloons,” has taken up the plea “Don’t let them break the heart of our city,” which appears on signs depicting the city in the shape of a heart with a jagged line marking the freeway route through the center.

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A sign of pride--The city’s landmark sign spelling out “City of South Pasadena” along the Pasadena Freeway dates to 1940, when the freeway opened. It was originally made of flowers and plants. Over the years it was ripped out and dug up by vandals and gophers. In the late 1970s, South Pasadena Beautiful, a civic group, raised $20,000 and installed letters made of cobblestones.

By the Numbers

CITY BUSINESS

Date incorporated: March 2, 1888

Area in square miles: 3

Number of parks: 4

City employees: 131 full time; 160 part time

1995-96 operating budget: 16 million

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ETHNIC MAKEUP

Latino: 13%

White: 62%

Asian: 21%

Black: 3%

Other: .4%

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PEOPLE

Population: 23,936

Households: 10,265

Average hopusehold size: 2

Median age: 35

MONEY AND WORK

Median household income: $43,043

Median household income/LA County: $34,965

Median home value: $371,700

Employed workers (16 and older): 13,862

Women in labor force: 63%

Men in labor force: 79%

Self-employed: 1,418

Car-poolers: 1,385

FAMILIES

Married couple families with children: 21%

Married couple families with no children: 24%

Other types of families: 14%

Nonfamily households: 42%

RETAIL STORES

Total stores: 166

Total employees: 1,615

Annual sales: $ 190 million

Source: Claritas Inc. retail figures are for 1995. All other figures are for 1990. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.