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. They highlight not just the crimes and accidents, but also give us the good that happens here – the volunteer groups, the service organizations, the youth and senior activities and, of course, the history of this very wonderful place in which we live. Over the years they have provided a safe place for students to get their first jobs writing for a real newspaper. They don’t do it for the money (believe me!); they do it as a service to us.

I first met Robin Goldsworthy in the ’80s when she and husband Steve became our neighbors. They were starting the area’s TV cable service, which they operated for many years. In the 2000s Robin became editor of the CV Sun and I wrote a couple of history articles for them. In 2009, the LA Times closed down our only local paper, the CV Sun, with the lame reasoning that we would get our local coverage from the Glendale NewsPress. Robin and reporter Mary O’Keefe recognized that the community truly needed an actual “local paper,” not one run from another city, and started the CV Weekly. That they started it during the Station Fire, arguably the biggest story of their 10-year run, is appropriate.

Robin recruited Jim Chase and me to do the weekly columns, Jim for daily-life pieces and me for local history. My first article was about a fire because the Station Fire was making a hell-on-earth of our beautiful valley. In the late 1800s, a young newlywed woman bravely fought off a brush fire that was sweeping across our valley. Single-handedly she saved her ranch located near today’s intersection of Pennsylvania and Foothill by digging a hasty firebreak and beating back the flames with a wet gunny-sack. That’s true grit!

I’ve now written 540 articles on local history for this paper. Next to me right now, I have a foot-high stack of reference material for future articles. I’ll never run out. I’ll write as long as Robin will have me.

I have never shied away from writing about dark or controversial pieces of the valley’s history. I’ve always believed that history should portray a balanced view of the past. Just like here in the present, the past has good players and bad players, and many in-between. Our valley has received nature’s bounty, and nature’s fury.

Which have been my favorite articles? My top favorite is the story of Crescenta Valley’s big oil strike. In the 1920s, some local realtors either employed or just went along with a con man who posed as a geologist. He promoted his findings of rich oil reserves under the valley, and the realtors cashed in on the resulting real estate price spikes. I also enjoy writing about local historical sites that are largely forgotten. I often get tips from readers, such as the last two weeks of plane crash sites I got from local explorer Matt Maxon, and next week’s find of an overgrown abandoned mine site that a reader told me he used to play around as a kid.

One subject I’m dying to write about, but has remained elusive, is the history of Montrose’s “Here, There and After” record store. Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, the store was an enticing brush with counter-culture and a place to branch out in our musical tastes. I’ve never been able to pin down its history.

The only downside to writing these articles is that I seem to always run out room to write. For instance, I want to tell you about the lost town of Azteca Park high up in Haines Canyon. It existed from the turn of the century until the ’30s, and is now marked only by overgrown foundations. I’ve got some amazing things to tell you about it but, of course, I’m out of space here.

  mike lawler