La Cañada History: Ribbon-cutting held for Memorial Park playground rehab delayed due to punishing El Niño storms

Ten Years Ago

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Aug. 21, 2008 at Sport Chalet’s new flagship store in the La Cañada Town Center, with the grand opening following the next day. “This is the culmination of 33 years of work by our company’s founder, Norbert Olberz and his family and we are all proud and excited this day has arrived,” said Craig Levra, then chairman and chief executive of the sporting goods retailer. (In April 2016, the regional chain, which had been purchased in 2014 by Vestis Retail Group, announced the closure of all its stores and stopped online sales. This fall, Target will open a “small-format” store in the former La Cañada Sport Chalet.)

Twenty Years Ago

A long-awaited ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the refurbished playground in Memorial Park. A long and intense El Niño rainy season had doused attempts to complete the project in advance of La Cañada’s 1998 Memorial Day activities.

Thirty Years Ago

The La Cañada school board learned final repairs of damage incurred by the October 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake had been made at the La Cañada High School campus. The cost of the work was pegged at about $35,600.

Forty Years Ago

As the school year opened for Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, enrollment at the Catholic girls school was 229, a new record for the campus. The largest contingent of foreign students that year, 24, came from Mexico, with Japan represented by 16 girls.

Fifty Years Ago

An emergency session was called for the La Cañada school board to decide where to set up temporary classrooms while the new La Cañada Elementary School was being completed, as it had become obvious the new campus on Encinas Drive would not be ready for the Sept. 16, 1968 opening day of school. Sites under consideration for temporary classrooms included Foothill Intermediate School on Cornishon Avenue, the Youth House on Chevy Chase Drive and La Cañada Presbyterian Church, where Sunday school classrooms could be made available.

Sixty Years Ago

Numerous bolts of lightning were seen and some rain fell on La Cañada and neighboring communities during an unexpected August storm that brought cool temperatures to the area.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.