Thrall, William H. (1873–1963)

William Henry Thrall represented a generation of southern Californians who laid the foundation for 20th-century growth and expansion. He came west during the 1880s land boom, a time when the population of Los Angeles and the surrounding cities swelled as the citrus industry, cutthroat railroad competition, and real estate speculation lured thousands to the region.

In southern California, optimistic new migrants like Will Thrall personified a progressive spirit as the new century approached. During the 1890s, the construction of the Mount Lowe Railway proved an ambitious commercial effort that epitomized a hopeful new Eden. The railway extended from the Sierra Madre to a mountain resort on Mount Wilson. As a teenager during the early 1890s, Thrall worked on the construction of the railway. For most southern Californians, this commercial venture symbolized all that was good about growth and settlement.

Yet the Mount Lowe Railway also presaged a potential threat to the San Gabriel Mountains. Atop Mount Wilson, the Mount Lowe Railway experiment reflected the ambivalent sentiments of the great hiking era, when Americans were intent on exploring the wilderness of a former frontier. But the industrial age also jeopardized the country's dwindling natural beauty and spawned an era of progressive reform, and people were intent on preserving what remained of the nation's scenic headlands. It was the advent of a reform era, during which spirited voices like those of John Muir and members of the Sierra Club alerted the nation to the importance of conservation policy in the Far West. A youthful Will Thrall embraced this activist spirit. He enlisted as a volunteer ranger, fought fires, and explored the mountain trails of Native Americans and early pioneers. Thrall visited mountain mining camps and listened to the mountain men recall vivid stories of bandito hideouts and trailblazing through the wilderness.

For Will Thrall, the San Gabriel Mountains were larger than the sum of their components, where place and time commingled, and history and nature were one; perhaps in the same way that the greater Southwest had captivated artist Georgia O'Keefe, who felt “the unexplainable thing in nature that makes me feel the world is big far beyond my understanding.”

Thrall's exposure to the San Gabriels, coupled with the rapid settlement of the valleys, highlighted the need to document the local mountain history before it was lost. Old campsites and cabins disappeared with [Page 620]time, and Indian trails were lost to fires, chaparral growth, and rains or snows while a steady increase in mountain traffic slowly erased any trace of mountain landmarks. Over the next half century Thrall photographed and catalogued mountain peaks, isolated cabins, dirt trails, backwoods communities, Indian rock pictographs, and big trees. He was the John Muir of southern California, filling the role of educator, protector, and booster of the region's mountain beauty. He lectured at civic gatherings about unusual rock formations, lost Indian trails, bandito hideouts, and the wonderland of cedar, pine, and mountain wildlife.

Thrall organized hiking clubs, youth organizations, and community groups in the years following World War I. With an old cabin as a rendezvous point, the “little man with the boots and floppy hat” generated widespread interest in mountain recreation and safety. Thrall was a mountain evangelist who firmly believed that everyone was a potential convert, and all could be enlisted in the crusade for safety and preservation. He felt that exposure and education were the great teachers of respect for outdoor beauty, and Thrall wanted to win the most converts possible to the local outdoor wonders. His organized hikes were widely publicized in the local papers. Members of his San Antonio Club climbed to Baldy summit, hiked beyond the Mt. Wilson trail into the top country of the San Gabriels, and roamed above Idyllwild toward the lofty peaks of the San Jacintos.

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