Pasadena celebrated its 140th birthday Sunday with a free, all-ages community party at the Pasadena Museum of History, where the city’s milestone shared the bill with two other 2026 anniversaries — the centennial of Route 66 and the 150th anniversary of Colorado Boulevard.
Themed “Highway to Adventure!,” the annual “Happy Birthday Pasadena” celebration ran from noon to 4 p.m. on the museum’s two-acre Fényes Estate campus. The museum stages the event each year in partnership with the City of Pasadena.
The afternoon’s centerpiece came at 2 p.m., when Mayor Victor Gordo and special guests cut a two-tiered birthday cake. Cake, lemonade and popcorn were served throughout the afternoon.
Across the grounds, the campus was reimagined as a nostalgic road trip. Vintage automobiles and motorcycles staged by the Jewel City Model A Club and the Pasadena Motorcycle Club anchored photo stops, while the Pasadena Society of Artists led a watercolor workshop and an Art 2 Go craft station invited children to build cardboard race cars. Other activities included face painting, Pump & Splash water toys, a Greetings Tour mini-mural station and a 3D chalk mural by artist Alex J. Cabalu. The band “4 on the Floor” provided live music, and visitors competed in Pasadena history trivia contests and on-campus scavenger hunts.
The party coincided with the opening weekend of the museum’s newest exhibition, “Where History Meets the Road: Celebrating Route 66 & Colorado Boulevard,” which opened June 13 and runs through Jan. 24, 2027. The exhibition’s centerpiece is a 70-foot-long, five-foot-high illustrated canvas scroll — the Route 66 Pathway Project, produced by Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Humanities in Practice under John Bohn with Joshua Goode — tracing the highway’s California leg from the Santa Monica coast to Needles. The project draws inspiration from 1915 road-map booklets published by the Southern California Automobile Association. Pasadena Heritage contributed oral histories to the exhibition, and the Altadena Historical Society was among the community partners on-site for Sunday’s celebration.
Admission to the exhibition was free during the event. During regular hours it carries the museum’s standard admission of $9 general and $7 for seniors, and is free for members, students and visitors under 18.
Pasadena incorporated as a charter city on June 19, 1886 — the second city to incorporate in what is now Los Angeles County — placing its 140th anniversary in 2026. Route 66 was commissioned Nov. 11, 1926, ran 2,448 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica and was decommissioned in 1985. Colorado Boulevard traces its origins to 1876, when a general store and post office opened at Fair Oaks Avenue, and later became part of the Route 66 corridor through Pasadena and the route of the Tournament of Roses Parade.
The Pasadena Museum of History is at 470 W. Walnut St. More information is available at pasadenahistory.org or (626) 577-1660.
