On a Mission to Preserve a Community’s Past
A handful of Lake View Terrace residents are calling on their neighbors to help form a historical society to document the forces that have shaped and sustained the rural, horse-keeping community amid suburban sprawl.
“Every community should preserve its history,” said Phyllis Hines, a longtime resident and historical society organizer. “If a community is going to be viable, it should go back and look at where it came from and where it is going.”
The idea for a historical society came up as Hines and other longtime Lake View Terrace residents swapped stories about the community’s native peoples and about a subterranean winery that operated during Prohibition beneath what is now the Hansen Dam Recreation Area.
Residents envision a historical society that also would chronicle recent events, Hines said, such as the protracted battle to close the Lopez Canyon Landfill and build a children’s museum.
Eventually, the group would like to restore a stone house behind the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center on Foothill Boulevard as the historical society’s permanent home.
The group plans to hold its first monthly meeting at 2 p.m. on Sept. 20 at the Lake View Terrace Branch Library, 12002 Osborne St.
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