La Cañada History: JPL, area officials break ground for a $63 million space center
Ten Years Ago
A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on May 7, 2007, for the first new building to be constructed on the campus in 25 years, a $63 million, six-story space center. When pressed on the locally touchy subject of whether JPL is in La Cañada or Pasadena, then-JPL director Charles Elachi finessed it: “We are in the center of the universe,” he said.
Twenty Years Ago
La Cañada’s oldest house of worship, Church of the Lighted Window (today called La Cañada Congregational Church), celebrated its 100th birthday with a service, a time capsule dedication and an afternoon party at Homewood, the Victorian era house still standing on Verdugo Boulevard that was built by a founding father of the town, Jacob Lanterman. It was the Lanterman family that organized the church in 1897 and donated the land for it.
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Thirty Years Ago
A group of La Cañada parents urged the school board to reopen Palm Crest Elementary School. The site had been closed some years earlier due to declining enrollment in the district, which also forced the closure of Oak Grove Elementary School on Foothill Boulevard (near La Cañada High) and Foothill Intermediate School on Cornishon Avenue.
Forty Years Ago
The La Cañada Flintridge City Council approved a three-year lease at $35,904 to occupy 1,600 square feet at Villa Real, a commercial property at 1327 Foothill Blvd. designed by well-known architect Jack Simison. The fledgling city at the time had only two employees who were planning to move into their new digs in July 1977.
Fifty Years Ago
Los Angeles County Supervisor Warren Dorn, a La Cañada resident, announced an agreement had been made to install 496 emergency telephones on 62 miles of freeway in his district.
Sixty Years Ago
Ground was broken for a new California Highway Patrol substation on the west side of Angeles Crest Highway just north of Foothill (where the Allen Lund Co. operates today). The owner of the property was Dr. Ross S. LeLansky, a La Cañada dentist.
Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.
