Another Lost Mine in the Verdugos Located? Some of my best history finds come from readers. I was recently contacted by David, who grew up in the ’80s on El Lado Drive just west of the bottom of Boston Avenue. David wrote the following: “There is an old trail at the end of the […]
Happy Birthday, La Crescenta! This weekend the Crescenta Valley Town Council and the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley will be celebrating the 135th anniversary of the community of La Crescenta – 1884 to 2019. Have we ever celebrated this birthday before? Not that I am aware of. So how did this event come […]
A Decade of CV Weekly and Me Wow! Ten years! I really enjoy working with Robin Goldsworthy, Mary O’Keefe and the rest of the staff. They are all truly good people. I really mean that. They have the best intentions – those being to build a sense of community and to keep us informed. […]
Local Aircraft Crashes – Locating the F-89 Wreckage in La Tuna Canyon The 1957 Pacoima mid-air collision is one of the most tragic air crashes in Southern California. The crash, involving a DC7 passenger plane and a F-89 fighter jet, killed people in the planes and people on the ground. The wreckage of the DC7 […]
Local Aircraft Crashes – 1931 Mail Plane Crash in the Verdugos Shipwrecks are fascinating for historians (and curious people in general) because they are a frozen-in-time moment of a great tragedy. There is something elemental about them that tug at our hearts and imaginations. Who doesn’t feel stirred by the recent explorations of the […]
An Accident Rallies School Traffic Safety in 1935 La Crescenta Elementary School in 1935 sat on the southwest corner of Prospect and La Crescenta avenues, just as it does today. And just like in current times, traffic in front of the school was a dangerous problem. La Crescenta Avenue is a steep downhill and […]
Once Upon A Time in Montrose Our Valley, and Montrose in particular, has many beautiful human stories that touch the heart. But none is so touching as the story of our local bookstore Once Upon A Time Children’s Bookstore. It all started way back in 1966 with local mom Jane Humphrey. Jane opened and […]
‘Squatters’ or ‘Homesteaders’ in Early Crescenta Valley This is a subject that has been misunderstood in the history of the Crescenta Valley. “Squatting” as a way of claiming land has a long history in the U.S. where vast tracts of land belonging to Native-Americans were simply settled by force. The federal laws were ambiguous. It […]
The Joy of Old Newspapers A great peek into the past can be had by paging through old newspapers. In a community like ours, which has a vibrant past, it’s especially fun to see the ad pitches businesses made back then. They are pretty goofy by today’s standards. As well, some of the articles […]
Montrose Search and Rescue – Two Local Girls Orphaned in Crash In 1997, a young Armenian-American family was out for a pleasant sightseeing drive on the Angeles Crest Highway on a beautiful spring afternoon. It was a Friday and both the daughters had just gotten out of school, the youngest an 11-year-old at Lincoln Elementary […]