One Man & Mule Railway

Inspiration Point lies about a ten-minute walk along part of the never-completed railway grade to the summit of Mount Lowe. From a rustic shelter there, sighting tubes helped visitors locate places of interest, including Catalina Island, 60 miles away, and many of these tubes remain today. Visitors to Inspiration Point remember the tiny One Man and Mule Railway, a little tourist tramway that connected Inspiration Point to Panorama Point overlooking Eaton Canyon. Operated by one man and his cantankerous mule, Herbert, the two-foot-gauge tramway remained in operation from 1917 to 1935. Herbert supplied the power to move the open bench car along the three-mile trip, and to keep dust off the passengers, the mule pushed the car rather than pulled it. This is one of two sets of wheels from the OM&M Tram, and the other set can be seen under the rebuilt shelter at Inspiration Point near the Mt.Lowe Trail Camp, a few miles west of here.

California · United States