John J. Lynch was labeled an unknown...

John J. Lynch was labeled an unknown by the news media when he entered the Los Angeles County assessor’s race in 1986. He defeated former state Assemblyman Jim Keysor, who admitted, “I cannot figure where John Lynch came from.”

One thing’s for sure. Visitors to the county Hall of Administration won’t wonder where John Lynch is now.

In what may be a record for a county officeholder, Lynch--who is up for reelection next year--has had his name affixed to 17 doors in the assessor’s offices.

Clear glass, glazed glass, wire-grid glass. You can find his name on just about every sort of known glass surface on the building’s second floor.

shop.

A nd who’s been rummaging around in MY campground?

It was the case of the Rifleman and the Three Bears. But unlike the fairy-tale plot, Mama Bear, Baby Bear 1 and Baby Bear 2 were the ones accused of being the intruders this time.

A camper, armed with a rifle in the Crystal Lake area north of Azusa, was heard over a CB radio remarking that he might shoot the animals who were stopping by uninvited.

A listener notified the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which dispatched deputies from its Walnut substation so “they could scurry” the bears away from campers and vice versa, Freddie Sherman said.

They found the camper and warned him against using his firearm. The officers found signs that the bears had been carousing in the area.

But the Three Bears had vanished.

Maybe they had heard the camper on their own CB.

wasn’t running.

Happy real Columbus Day. Incidentally, partisans of the famed Italian navigator who complain that no parade is held here in his honor aren’t quite correct.

In fact, thousands of Southern California motorists pay a kind of homage to Columbus in a procession every day.

A decade ago, Caltrans tried to persuade the other states through which Interstate 10 passes to join the agency in dedicating the roadway to Columbus. They all refused, but Caltrans went ahead anyway.

Hence the sign alongside the Santa Monica Freeway in Santa Monica, telling motorists they’re traversing the . . .

Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway.

At least as far as Blythe.

Why, Tarzan, of course.

Time was when Los Angeles boasted a real estate company whose building was shaped like the Sphinx, a hamburger stand resembling a frog’s body, a plant shop in the form of a flower pot and a diner built along the lines of a blimp.

They’re only memories now. But at least Southern California has held on to its Assyrian rubber factory.

The status of the ornate temple--which last went by the prosaic name of the Uniroyal Tire Plant--was in doubt for a while the other night, however, when a fire broke out there.

But the palace’s bas relief panels, stone figures, tower buttresses and stepped architecture were largely undamaged.

And City of Commerce officials say they plan to proceed with their plans to convert the interior into a temple of offices along the Santa Ana Freeway.

The historic structure was built 60 years ago--that’s ancient times, in terms of L.A. real estate--by Adolph Schleicher, the Walt Disney of the tire world. While the inside was just a factory, he had the front wall built in the style of the digs of King Sargon II of Assyria.

It hasn’t turned out any tires since 1978.

Since then, it has occasionally been used for auctions and was briefly considered as a site for a high school (Fight on for Assyria High!)

But so far, the kings, holy men and genii carved into its side seem to have protected the rubber factory against destruction by fire, or by a more common local catastrophe, the wrecking ball.