Retired Rosemont Middle School history teacher Lynn McGinnis told me recently that he was walking in the Montrose area, and came on a family gathered around a streetlight, one of them crouched down examining the base of the lamppost. Lynn said he knew what was up immediately, as it’s an issue that gets ugly in […]
If you’re like me, any local construction project gets your curiosity up. Here’s some answers to your “What the heck’s being built there?” questions. Just recently the Crescenta Valley Town Council has taken a giant leap forward by reinventing their Land Use Committee to oversee controversial development. Their first meeting was last month, and the […]
A little over six months ago, the community was surprised when bulldozers showed up on Foothill Boulevard just west of Rosemont Avenue at a site locally known as the “Plumb Crazy lot” because of a plumbing business that had been located there. Surprise turned to shock when it was discovered that plans for a massive […]
The absolute best symbol of the beauty of the Crescenta Valley (man-made anyway) is the charming stone church at Rosemont and Foothill, St. Luke’s of the Mountains. Built from a painting done by a famous artist, it is visually magnificent. There are many other aspects of the church – the stained glass, the landscaping, the […]
Next in our series on the history of the land that was once the WWII enemy alien prison “Tuna Camp,” but is now the Verdugo Hills Golf Course, comes the bizarre and bewildering story of the odyssey of the Peruvian Japanese. With the 1942 decision to remove those of Japanese ancestry from strategic areas of […]
Let’s get back to our story on the Verdugo Hills Golf Course and its previous incarnation as WWII enemy alien camp. Conditions in the camp were good by wartime standards, particularly to a population that was used to Depression era privations. The prisoners were allowed free range of the enclosure, exercise was encouraged, and some, […]
Once again a developer is caught making a “mistake” that favors him financially. I’m referring to the three-story office development on Foothill Boulevard that was recently revealed to have a basic “error” in its design that allowed the developer a much taller building than was legal. I’ve written previously about how the bulldozers showed up […]
In my self-appointed role of local historian I’ve often said that although the Crescenta Valley has a relatively short written history, barely over 100 years, we make up for that with a dynamic history that reads like a supermarket tabloid. Its pages are filled with stories of UFOs, Nazis, grisly murders, sex scandals, racial prejudice, […]
After the 200 boys of CCC Company 548 arrived at La Tuna Camp and set up tents beneath the oak trees, they began clearing a natural plain, approximately where the driving range is today. They quickly threw up 11 wooden Army-style buildings, which included seven 50-man barracks, a mess hall, an infirmary, and an office. […]
I continue again with my series on the history of the land now occupied by the Verdugo Hills Golf Course, which has served as a microcosm of dynamic historic events of national caliber. Previously I conjectured the use of the land by both Indians and Spanish missions, but now we enter into the period of […]