“Who was Mr. Puddingstone?”

“Who was Mr. Puddingstone?” a young college student asked recently. Alas — there was no Mr. Puddingstone for whom the Lake and Dam might be named.

According to Mrs. Harry Walker, our first Historian, its name was suggested when a group of friends walked from Grand Ave. (now Damien) to the Falls about 1888 for a picnic. Some of the (conglomerate) rocks in the area seemed to them to resemble raisins in a pudding, so they decided to call the place “Puddingstone” Falls. (You can still see these rocks in places near the Lake - notably on the hill just to the SW of Brackett Field and near the present “Hot Tubs”.)

In 1890, when surveying the meadow where Saturnino Carrion had grazed his cattle, William Mount identified this as an ideal site for a natural reservoir. (He called the place “Pudding Hole”.) J. H. Adams of Covina, claimed that “God almighty has built this reservoir for the people, that this valley may become luxuriant and match the glory of the sunshine.” However, it was not until 1928 that Puddingstone Dam was dedicated and the Lake filled from the stream that ran down from San Dimas Canyon.

Puddingstone Falls

The Park surrounding the Lake was also known as Puddingstone until County Supervisor Frank Bonelli retired, when the name was changed in his honor to its present identification as “Bonelli Park.”

Early street names were altered for reasons we can sometimes only guess at. The street now named “Damien” for the Catholic High School on Bonita Avenue was originally “Grand Avenue.” Since the Grand Avenue in Covina is a major artery, the Fire Department asked that our street be renamed to minimize confusion.

San Dimas Canyon Road was known for many years as Artesia Street. Probably it was named for the Artesian Wells at Mud Springs, which had their location around the present intersection of San Dimas Canyon Road and Arrow Highway. Was it perhaps when the north end of the road was improved into the Canyon that the name was changed? Or when the artesian wells ran dry?

“Bank Street” was the name of the one-block-long street beside the First National Bank of San Dimas. When the Fruit Exchange opened its office on that street, the name went to Exchange Place, which it is now.

It seems reasonable that the street beside the Santa Fe Depot was called Depot Street. At what point did some City-Beautiful person decide that it should be Monte Vista?

When we had one of our rainy winters, did water come roaring down Cataract Street? And what developer dreamed of an Ocean Bluff when he named that street? We know Dunning Way and St. George Drive were both named for the family who owned the large property on both sides of Lone Hill Avenue, north of Arrow Highway, but who was “Amelia”?

And then there’s “Eucla” - which was originally “Eucalyptus” - was it shortened by a sign-painter who couldn’t spell