Old Short Cut

The federal government paid seventy-five dollars for California's first ranger station, and Louie Newcomb and Phillip Begue built it in 1900 where Shortcut Canyon meets the West Fork of the San Gabriel River. There was no Forest Service yet; it came five years later. The reserve was not even called the Angeles then. New roads in the late 1920s left the cabin off every travelled route, and it was moved up to Chilao in 1983 to save it from decay and vandals.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Street Bridge — 15 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 17 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.

More markers nearby

• The Angeles National Forest — 10 mi
• Christmas Tree Lane — 12 mi
• E. J. Baldwin's Queen Anne Cottage — 13 mi
• Reid-Baldwin Adobe — 13 mi