La Cañada History: Ladies arrive in style befitting their eras as leaders of the Thursday Club

Ten Years Ago

It was learned that Sakura steak, seafood and sushi house, then operating in 19 locations along the East Coast, would open its 20th restaurant in La Cañada. It would occupy the octagonal building anchoring the new Town Center, at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Angeles Crest Highway and was expected to open for business in January 2009.

Twenty Years Ago

Parties who were perhaps fed up with difficulties La Cañada Properties was experiencing in developing the Sport Chalet shopping center posted for several hours a bogus sign that proclaimed the land at the intersection of Foothill and Angeles Crest Highway had been sold to Kmart. The pranksters placed an anonymous call to the Valley Sun the night before the sign was posted, advising the editor to send a reporter to cover important news breaking the next morning. No one took credit for the stunt.

Thirty Years Ago

The La Cañada Flintridge Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit to Lutheran Church in the Foothills to run a cooperative nursery school there. The maximum number of students was set at 90.

Forty Years Ago

Citing the fact that over a three-year period La Cañada Unified School District had seen a 16% drop in enrollment, Donald Ziehl, the superintendent of schools, informed the city that at least one local campus would be closed in 1979.

Fifty Years Ago

The Regional Planning Commission gave approval for the purchase of six residential lots immediately north of the Verdugo Savings & Loan building then located at Foothill Boulevard and Oakwood Avenue for the purpose of constructing a new permanent county public library for La Cañada. The then-existing public library on La Cañada Boulevard would be torn down to make way for the Foothill (210) Freeway.

Sixty Years Ago

With the new season beginning Oct. 2, 1958, the long tradition of the La Cañada Thursday Club was symbolized in a Valley Sun cover photograph. The photo featured Mrs. J. Wilbur Seright, the club’s president in 1917-18, behind the wheel of a 1923 Hupmobile convertible alongside the incoming club president, Mrs. Thomas Bunn, in a new Flintridge DKW sports car. The latter car was distributed by Flintridge Motors in Montrose.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.