The Jewish Consumptive Relief Association of California purchased an abandoned roadhouse and 10 acres of land at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains to treat patients suffering from tuberculosis, a highly infectious disease that causes fever, a persistent cough, and, before the discovery of antibiotics, often death. The preferred treatment was the climate cure of fresh air, sunlight, and rest, and many people afflicted with the disease left unsanitary East Coast cities and sweatshops for the wide-open West in hopes of recovery. In 1912, the association began raising funds to open a tuberculosis sanatorium in Duarte; in 1913, fundraising cleared the $5,000 mortgage on the 10 acres; in 1914, the Los Angeles Sanatorium opened and offered free aid to tuberculosis sufferers, with its first patients housed in canvas cottages; and in 1921, the Junk Peddlers Protective Association of Los Angeles financed the first major landscaping, while Al Jolson and the Warner family donated money for gardens.
