Feb 22, 1906: The first Pasadena-Altadena Hill Climb was held by the Licensed Motor Car Dealers Association of Los Angeles (see 1906 advertisement). At that point, this was the most important So Calif auto event until its final race in 1909. Though Herald Examiner cartoonist George Herriman caricatured the event in above cartoon, hill climbs were serious business to the drivers of the competing runabouts, roadsters, and touring cars. In 1906, Thomas Hughes outraced the competition in his Thomas Flyer, averaging a speed of 12 miles per hour over the 1.5 mile course. Anthony Earle won the next year in his Packard 30 and Edgar Apperson in his Apperson Jack Rabbit, won the last two years. Barney Oldfield in his six-cylinder Stearns was the favorite in 1909 and according to one report “the battle for the honors between Oldfield and Apperson was sensational indeed.”

The course roughly followed Santa Rosa Avenue, what we now know as Christmas Tree Lane. For more on the course and the 1908 hill climb, see the LA Daily Mirror.

The races were crowd pleasers, drawing as many as 30,000 spectators. The Pasadena police guarded the course but “they experienced some difficulty in keeping the foolish spectators out of the way of the flying machines.” Because of the crowds and potential dangers, the race was not held after 1909.

The above Herriman cartoon came from a blog by a comic strip historian, Allan Holtz who has a fun set of images on the history of comics: http://strippersguide.blogspot.com