Monrovia

Monrovia station is an at-grade light rail station on the A Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located at the intersection of Duarte Road and Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia, California, after which the station is named. This station opened on March 5, 2016, as part of Phase 2A of the Gold Line Foothill Extension Project. History The Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad built the first train tracks and station in Monrovia in 1887. The Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad was founded in 1883, by James F. Crank with the goal of bringing a rail line to San Gabriel Valley from downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad was sold on May 20, 1887 into the California Central Railway. In 1889 this was consolidated into Southern California Railway Company. On January 17, 1906 Southern California Railway was sold to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and designated the Pasadena Subdivision. Installed in 1887, a mule-drawn railway with a single passenger car, called the Myrtle Avenue Railroad at that time ran from the Monrovia station up Myrtle Ave to downtown Monrovia. On the way back down to the rail station, the mule was loaded onto a flatcar and downhill gravity took the cars back to the station. By the early 1920s the partially mule-powered streetcar system was removed. In 1906 the first Pacific Electric rail car arrived in Monrovia. The PE Pasadena and Monrovia line ended in 1951. Santa Fe Middle School near the station is named after the Santa Fe Railway.