La Cañada History: Drivers survived a fiery drag race crash

Ten Years Ago

Foothill Summer Theatre, long a mainstay summer musical theater program here, staged six performances of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate” in the auditorium at La Cañada High School during late July 2004. The cast showcased the talents of area youth, ages 10-20.

Twenty Years Ago

The owners of Foothill Volkswagen, then located on the southeast corner of Foothill Boulevard and Gould Avenue, disclosed plans to close the dealership. Their hope was to sell off the 2.8-acre property to be developed with three large chain, specialty retail stores.

Thirty Years Ago

A request to add a drive-through service at the local McDonald’s restaurant was turned down by the La Cañada Flintridge Planning Commission, as commissioners voiced concerns that the added service would cause serious traffic problems in the area.

Forty Years Ago

It was announced on July 25, 1974 in the Valley Sun that Gerald R. Ford, then vice president of the United States, would attend a reception at the Flintridge Avenue home of Dr. and Mrs. Bert H. Cotton on Aug. 12 of that year to lend support to the reelection campaign of local Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead. But just days before the reception was to take place, on Aug. 8, President Richard M. Nixon announced his resignation and Ford was sworn in Aug. 9 as president. Rep. Charles Wiggins was asked to stand in at the Flintridge fundraiser for Ford. The local $50-per-plate event was deemed a success, with 650 guests turning out.

Fifty Years Ago

A drag race on Crown Avenue during the wee hours of a July 1964 morning ended badly when one of the two vehicles involved didn’t make the turn at Sana Inez Way, jumped the curb, flipped over on its top and burst into flames. The driver, a 21-year-old Pasadena man, crawled out the rear window of his ’63 sedan and escaped without injury. An 18-year-old La Crescentan acted as the flag starter, waving a pair of red-and-white swimming trunks at the starting point, which was the intersection of Crown and Baptiste Way. A California Highway Patrol officer called to the scene estimated the drivers reached speeds of 70 miles per hour on that wide stretch of Crown. He collected the swimming trunks as evidence of the illegal activity after the flagman threw them into a planter at the La Cañada Post Office.

Sixty Years Ago

An Encinas Drive resident reported to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Montrose station that as he was passing by a public phone booth in the 800 block of Foothill Boulevard he noticed that someone had cut the phone receiver from the line and absconded with it.

-- Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci