The collection contains material related to the business enterprises of James Filmore Crank; the material includes correspondence, letter books, documents, manuscripts, maps, and volumes.

James Filmore Crank (1842-1935) was born in Bushnell, Yates County, New York. He spent some years in Cleveland, Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois before moving to California because of his wife's health in 1874. Crank bought the Fair Oaks Ranch in Pasadena, California, from Benjamin S. Eaton in 1877. Crank was active in Los Angeles, where he organized the First National Bank, became an owner of the Los Angeles Times, helped secure Westlake Park for the city, and gave land for the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena. He was instrumental in the founding of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad, which began operation in 1885 and was sold to the Santa Fe Railroad in 1887. He built the first cable street railway in the West in Los Angeles in 1889 and helped found the city of Monrovia, California, in 1886. He died in Pasadena, in 1935 at the age of 92.

15 Linear Feet (11 boxes, 13 volumes, 32 maps and drawings)

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