La Cañada History: La Cañada Thursday Club stages Heirloom Discovery Day

Ten Years Ago

A herd of 250 goats arrived by transporter truck that brought them from Lakeview, Ore. to Descanso Gardens to serve in a vegetation management capacity, eating brush to reduce fire fuel. They were in La Cañada for a one-month stay, during which it was expected they would thin out the brush across 13 acres.

Twenty Years Ago

La Cañada resident Sue Schecter, then serving as president of the Lanterman Historical Museum Foundation, was appointed to the State Historical Resources Commission by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Thirty Years Ago

The La Cañada Thursday Club staged Heirloom Discovery Day, bringing in experts from Sotheby Parke Bernet to examine antique watches, jewelry, silver, prints, china and more.

Forty Years Ago

The La Cañada school board approved on an experimental basis a federally funded college work-study program that would place Pasadena City College students in La Cañada Unified School District part-time jobs to help their financial position while attending the local college.

Fifty Years Ago

A 29-year-old Pasadena man, Ralph A. Lowe, was killed in an industrial accident at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the first fatal mishap reported in the history of the facility. Lowe was doing testing related to JPL’s Mariner spacecraft project at the time of the accident. “The technician apparently died from the concussion of an exploding 20-inch pipeline while dry nitrogen gas was channeled into an experimental chamber being brought up to atmospheric pressure,” a news report explained.

Sixty Years Ago

The La Cañada Chamber of Commerce voted in late March 1954 to oppose the extension of the town’s business district from Oakwood Avenue east to Hampton Road. Four property owners were asking the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission to rezone their Foothill frontage between those two streets from single-family residential to neighborhood business and parking. The local chamber vowed to present opposition to the move during a hearing of the case, which was set for April 20 of that year.

-- Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci