La Cañada History: Powerful winds knock down around 200 trees

Ten Years Ago

As an extensive construction project at La Cañada Presbyterian Church continued in January 2007, a shiny new look for the church campus was becoming more apparent to passersby after workers started placing sheets of copper scale asphalt shingles on the roof that also hugged the curved entrance to the narthex. The project got underway in the summer of 2005; church officials estimated it would be completed by April 2007.

Twenty Years Ago

Violent winds pounded La Cañada Flintridge, creating emergencies and uprooting approximately 200 trees within the city limits. Residents and businesses were left without power, including telephone service, and streets were blocked by debris. Signs in the commercial corridor sustained damages, including a large billboard in the 1000 block of Foothill Boulevard that toppled over onto the rooftop of a business. One resident, Andy Becwar of Old Landmark Lane, found a car he’d recently purchased crushed underneath a tree.

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Thirty Years Ago

The owner of a prominent La Cañada plumbing business made a crime report to the local sheriff’s station stating his company had lost at least $64,000 through a forgery and embezzlement scheme. The crime was discovered when the bookkeeper was on vacation and the business owner studied a bank statement and looked at the canceled checks that had been enclosed in the envelope with it. He found checks that had been made out to cash, then endorsed by the bookkeeper, who had not returned to the office as expected following her scheduled days off. The business owner told a sheriff’s deputy the thefts could be traced back two years, from the start of his bookkeeper’s employment with him, and that he anticipated an auditor would find further discrepancies and losses.

Forty Years Ago

After agreeing with city planners to forgo installing a 24-foot pole sign, Winchell’s gained approval to move forward with plans to put a new Winchell’s Donut House on Foothill Boulevard, at Belaire Drive.

Fifty Years Ago

Longtime La Cañada resident and developer Philip Kirst announced plans to create a new, $1.75-million shopping center on just over 4 acres fronting Foothill Boulevard at Oakwood Avenue. The need for the complex came about because the state was buying up properties to make way for the construction of the 210 Freeway and included in those purchases was a smaller shopping center where Alexander’s Market had been the anchor store. Gelson’s Market now occupies the site that Kirst built for the replacement Alexander’s in his Plaza de La Cañada.

Sixty Years Ago

Rudy’s Flintridge Inn, a large, bustling restaurant on the 700 block of Foothill Boulevard where today sits a strip center occupied by Ichiban, Jersey Mike’s and Penguins, announced it would host the “La Cañada Piano Festival.” The event would feature nearly 200 pianists and 15 opera stars performing over a period of 14 hours, beginning at noon on a Saturday in January 1957. The artists would provide continuous performances on four pianos occupying four of the restaurant’s dining rooms. An optional dinner buffet would be available to guests for $1.50 per person.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.