Kenneth's sketch of the dammed up water where neighborhood kids played.

Contemporary map showing stormdrains. (Bureau of Engineering)

William Hammond Hall 1888 data overlaid on contemporary topos. (Bureau of Engineering)

WHERE THE CREEK RAN UNDERGROUND

In the mid 1800s, Eagle Rock Creek continued roughly in the proximity of Lanark Street and turned west toward Yosemite Drive.

A hundred years later, an open streambed still existed north of La Loma, but after passing under a bridge at La Loma, ran into a concrete gutter and then storm drain. Here is a story from the late 50s, as told by Kenneth Kent Sr.:

"At the end of Lanark Street was a street called La Loma and it bridged over the concrete ditch that ran along Lanark, on the other side was the river that flowed into the ditch, now we had a perfectly good Kayak but not enough water to float it in, and it didn't work out very well as a coaster. My step-dad had these sand bags he wasn't using anyway and we always had a sand pile at home in the back yard, So we dammed up the river at the bridge making sure to leave a spillway so the water would only get so deep, just enough to float a Kayak. The water balked up to some giant oleander bushes on the bank and you could paddle in to them like a river on the Nile, one day we were paddling out of darkest Africa and on the bridge was a Cop and a Lady that lived next to our lake, she said we were making mosquitoes and the lake had to go, that was too bad cause it was a neat lake."