La Cañada History: Paradise Canyon holds roundup; residents given chance to vote for cityhood

Ten Years Ago

Former football player and Heisman Trophy winner Mike Garrett, then athletic director at the University of Southern California, in May 2006 was the featured speaker at the Crescenta-Cañada YMCA’s annual Prayer Breakfast.

Twenty Years Ago

Residents of La Cañada Flintridge were being asked to show special understanding to their hometown merchants affected by traffic issues during the construction of the first sewer line along Foothill Boulevard. The plea came after business owners complained that the disruption caused by the work might force them to shut down.

Thirty Years Ago

The Kiwanis Club of La Cañada purchased 48 new American flags to be displayed along Foothill Boulevard in time for the 1986 Memorial Day weekend. The new banners replaced 23-year-old flags that had been displayed on national holidays by local Boy Scout troops.

Forty Years Ago

Three years to the month after its inception, the La Cañada Flintridge cityhood drive culminated on May 12, 1976 when the County Local Formation Agency approved, on a 3-2 vote, an incorporation election. One of the two opposing votes was cast by Commissioner John D. Phillips, a former city manager of neighboring Pasadena, which had been attempting to annex the Jet Propulsion Laboratory so it would not be included in the boundaries of the proposed new city.

Fifty Years Ago

The La Cañada Valley Chapter of the California Republican League announced it was planning a fundraising dinner event on behalf of Flintridge resident Robert Finch, who was running for the office of lieutenant governor. The dinner was to be held at a private residence on Beulah Drive. (Finch did go on to win the election, and in 1969 was appointed to President Richard Nixon’s cabinet as secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. He left that post in mid-1970 to become counselor to the president.)

Sixty Years Ago

Paradise Canyon Elementary School’s PTA invited the whole town to its “Roundup” carnival, held on the Knight Way campus. The event featured a fun house, carnival rides, a shooting gallery, a sponge throw, confetti eggs, a cake walk, a makeup booth and tables laden with home-cooked foods for sale.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.