La Cañada History: Spring rains fill Lake Devil’s Gate in May 1958

Ten Years Ago

The La Cañada High School varsity boys swim team took first place at the CIF championships for its third crown in as many years. “I gave everyone a task and everyone stepped up to complete that task,” said coach Art Lopez, in explaining his team’s success.

Twenty Years Ago

A proposed city ordinance requiring La Cañada restaurants to post letter grades issued by Los Angeles County health inspectors was put on hold for 60 days. Business owners who addressed the city’s public safety commission said they were less concerned with the county’s cleanliness requirements than the likelihood of being inpsected on a “bad day” and being stuck with a poor grade until their next inspection which, they said, might not be until four months later.

Thirty Years Ago

Tony Predisik, who had served as La Cañada High’s athletic director for just two years, announced he would step down from that post at the end of the 1987-88 school year to spend more time with his family. The 36-year-old said he would continue as the school’s Associated Student Body activities director and still teach math and physical education classes.

Forty Years Ago

The La Cañada High Marching Band performed at Dodger Stadium on a May day in 1978, playing “Shenandoah” and selections from “Star Wars” and “The Wiz.”

Fifty Years Ago

A campaign office was opened in La Cañada for the election of the town’s former superintendent of schools, Max Rafferty, to the U.S. Senate. The sometimes controversial Rafferty, who was the California superintendent of public instruction from 1963 to 1971 and later bragged he had “killed progressive education in California,” served in La Cañada from 1961 to 1962. The conservative Republican ultimately lost his 1968 Senate bid to Democrat Alan Cranston.

Sixty Years Ago

The expansive lake behind Devil’s Gate Dam was full after spring rains, and a scenic photo of it showing the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the background was featured on the cover of the May 15, 1958, Valley Sun.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.