La Cañada History: One City One Book Committee announced its pick for La Cañada’s 2007 community celebration of reading
Ten Years Ago
The La Cañada Flintridge One City One Book Committee, then gearing up for its annual October discussion of a featured title, in September 2007 announced that Los Angeles author María Escandón would be in town when her book “Gonzales & Daughter Trucking Co.” would be discussed. The owner of an area bookstore called the book a “quirky, wonderful, inventive tale” that inspired area teens to band together in a “Tough Girls” club.
Twenty Years Ago
Officials using data collected from the JPL-managed Topex/Poseidon satellite warned that the winter of 1998 would be a very wet one, perhaps one of the wettest of the 20th century, due to El Niño conditions then forming in the Pacific Ocean. Their predictions came true months later.
Thirty Years Ago
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials fielded questions at a Sept. 29, 1987, town hall meeting to discuss the subject of that summer’s consolidation of jail operations of the Crescenta Valley and Altadena sheriff’s stations at the CV facility. The cost-saving measure was estimated to ease the department’s budget by more than $1.3 million. Some residents were not pleased that individuals arrested for Altadena crimes were being jailed locally and said they believed the community should have been better warned about the changes.
Forty Years Ago
During an LCF City Council discussion, the local sheriff’s commander was highly critical of alleged misinformation being given out to La Cañada High School students by their teachers about the agency. “Our rapport with La Cañada High School is rotten,” said Capt. Forrest Renfrow. Speaking about the entire picture of crime in town, Renfrow told the council that 80% of criminal activity here was being done “by our own kids on a dare or a thrill.”
Fifty Years Ago
The 1967 United Crusade in La Cañada got a colorful send off in a sports parade held along Foothill Boulevard in the early fall of that year. The fundraising goal for the effort was set at $70,528.
Sixty Years Ago
Plans for a $400,000, three-level medical professional building on Angeles Crest Highway in La Cañada were revealed by Beverly Hills developer George Schecter. Boasting about 25,000 square feet of usable space, it would be the largest building in La Cañada and would contain the town’s first elevator. The developer reported he’d already garnered signed leases from general practitioners and specialists who were expecting a May 1958 opening. (Today the Allen Lund Co. is headquartered there.)
Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.
