Huntington's interest in art was influenced in large part by his second wife, Arabella Huntington (1851–1924), and with art experts to guide him, he benefited from a post- World War I European market that was 'ready to sell almost anything'. As president of the Pacific Electric Railway Company, the regional streetcar and public transit system for the Los Angeles metropolitan area and southern California and also of the Los Angeles Railway Company, (later the Southern California Railway), he spearheaded urban and regional transportation efforts to link together far-flung communities, supporting growth of those communities as well as promoting commerce, recreation and tourism. On July 16, 1913, he married his uncle's widow, Arabella Huntington (1851–1924). He was one of the founders of the City of San Marino which was incorporated on April 25, 1913. He later purchased other large tracts of land in the Pasadena and Los Angeles areas of Los Angeles County for urban and suburban development. In 1903, he purchased the 600-acre 'San Marino Ranch' from James DeBarth Shorb Jr (1870-1907) for $240,000. In 1902, he relocated from the financial and political center of Northern California, San Francisco, to the state's newer southern major metropolis, Los Angeles. In 1892, Huntington relocated to San Francisco with his first wife, Mary Alice Prentice, and their four children.

Huntington (1821–1900), one of the famous 'Big Four' railroad tycoons of nineteenth century California history. Huntington was born in 1850, in Oneonta, New York, and was the nephew and heir of Collis P.

Its main reading room now is an exhibition hall.Īs a landowner, Henry Edwards Huntington (1850–1927) played a major role in the growth of Southern California.

The unwritten library