Security Guard in Pasadena, CA

The original inhabitants of Pasadena (from the Tongva language name “Pasakeg-na”) and surrounding areas were members of the Native American Hahamog-na tribe, a branch of the Tongva Nation. They spoke the Tongva language (part of the Uto-Aztecan languages group). Native Americans had lived in the Los Angeles Basin for thousands of years. Tongva dwellings lined the Arroyo Seco (Los Angeles County) in present day Pasadena and south to where it joins the Los Angeles River and along other natural waterways in the city.

The native people lived in thatched, dome-shape lodges and lived on a diet of acorn meal, seeds and herbs, venison, and other small animals as well as trading for ocean fish with the coastal Tongva. They made cooking vessels from steatite soapstone from Catalina Island. The oldest transportation route still in existence in Pasadena is the old Tongva foot trail, also known as the Gabrielino Trail, that follows the west side of the Rose Bowl and the Arroyo Seco past the Jet Propulsion Laboratory into the San Gabriel Mountains. The trail has been in continuous use for thousands of years. An arm of the trail is also still in use in what is now known as the Salvia Canyon.

The Spanish first colonized the Los Angeles Basin in the 1770s as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, building the San Gabriel Mission and renaming the local Tongva people “Gabrielino Indians”, after the name of the mission. Today, several bands of Tongva people live in the Los Angeles area.