Biography sites: Wikipedia, Altadena Historical Society, USC Libraries, AAAIM, 2026-10-08

Pages fetched by curl to research/pages/ (wiki-larkin.txt, altadena-larkin.html, usc-wizard.html, aaaim.html) and grepped. These are secondary sources (biographies), useful for names, dates and places.

Wikipedia, "Edgar Lucien Larkin" [web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Lucien_Larkin]

• Dates: 5 April 1847 - 11 October 1924 (cites PASP 36 (1924) 363-364, ASP board minutes).
• Born Indian Creek, Illinois; after his father's death (1858) moved with his mother to Ottawa, Illinois; saw Comet Donati on 5 Oct 1858; telescope by 1880; observatory at New Windsor, Illinois (8 years), then Knox College, Galesburg.
• Says he took the Mount Lowe directorship "in 1890": conflicts with Larkin's own 1902 report (1 Jan 1901) and with Swift's tenure to Dec 1900. Treat 1890 as an error in the secondary sources.
• Photo: Larkin, Luther Burbank and Jack London, Santa Rosa, 1903.
• Cites a critical note: "The Earthquake and Professor Larkin", Science 24 (1906) 178-180 (read: research/2026-10-08-internet-archive.md).
• Wrote on Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria; American Antiquarian 35 (1913) 219.

Altadena Historical Society, "A digital history of Mount Lowe" [web: https://mountlowe.altadenahistoricalsociety.org/edgar-lucien-larkin]

• Same biography; "By 1880, he had his own private observatory. Eight years later, he and his equipment moved to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he remained until 1890" (again 1890 for Mount Lowe: conflicts, see above).
• 1905: Larkin and photographer Charles Lawrence saved the observatory and telescope from the windstorm and fire that destroyed other buildings on Echo Mountain.
• "three books and hundreds of articles"; interests in Hindu, Greek and Egyptian philosophies, the occult, Atlantis and Mu. Caption spells the name "Dr. Edgar Larken" (the project folder's spelling also appears here).

USC Libraries, Nathan Masters, "The Wizard of Echo Mountain" (2020) [web: https://libraries.usc.edu/article/wizard-echo-mountain]

• "came to Southern California in 1900"; "a nationally syndicated column about astronomy"; "nearly 9,000 bylines"; "one of the few fluent in the language of Theosophy"; "did speak out forcefully against pseudosciences like astrology"; Mexico trip, pyramids and the lost continent "Pan".
• 1932 Los Angeles Times story (after his death) that Larkin had seen a Lemurian temple on Mount Shasta through his telescope; Masters calls this an incredible claim perpetuated by credulous readers (the author's characterization; no source from Larkin given).
• Points to ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times for articles about Larkin (USC login: not accessed).

AAAIM / Echo Mountain Echoes, Jake Brouwer, "Edgar Lucien Larkin", Winter 1998 [web: http://www.aaaim.com/echo/v3n4/v3n4larkin.htm]

• "on August 11, 1900 ... Edgar Lucien Larkin found himself accepting the position of director of the Lowe Observatory", coming from the Knox College Observatory.
• "Within the next ten years Larkin built a private observatory in New Windsor, Illinois and on January 1, 1880 a 6 inch Clark equatorial with circles was set upon it's pier." Spring 1888: moved the equipment to the new Knox College dome.
• Married Alice Anna Everman, 1869. Swift going blind; Valentine Peyton (Mount Lowe Railway owner) bought Swift's equipment.
• Bearing: the book's Nov 1882 sunspot-jet drawings (Cuts 54-55, "six-inch Clark equatorial") were therefore very probably made at New Windsor, Illinois (lat. 41 deg 13', as the book gives for "Illinois", p.~300) [inference]. A New Windsor observing log, if it survives (Knox College archives), would be the primary record for claim 2's November 1882 observations.