Eaton Canyon and Eaton Wash are named for Pasadena’s original water bringer Benjamin Smith Eaton (1823-1909). Born in Plainfield, CT, Eaton graduated from Harvard Law School in 1846 and set up practice in Missouri, where he met his first wife Helena Hayes (1827-1858). (Her brother Benjamin has a namesake street in Carthay Circle.) In 1850, the couple came to L.A., where Eaton served as district attorney and, later, county assessor. After Helena’s death, Eaton left town for a spell, then returned in 1861 with a new wife: Alice (1838-1920). They bought Fair Oaks Ranch four years later, apparently goaded by John S. Griffin and Benjamin D. Wilson, who owned Rancho San Pascual (where Fair Oaks was located) and wanted to sell it – provided it could be irrigated. Eaton made that happen, and in 1873 Griffin and Wilson sold San Pascual to the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association, which counted Eaton amongst its directors. This group then founded the colony that became Pasadena. Eaton left Fair Oaks for South Pas in 1877 and retired to Los Angeles in 1897. The following year, his son Fred (1856-1934) was elected mayor of the latter city. Fred Eaton played his own part in the saga of SoCal water: it was he who first envisioned an aqueduct that would bring water to L.A. from the faraway Owens Valley, and then told William Mulholland to build it.
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