La Cañada History: Huge pit emerges in heart of town as work on 210 Freeway gets underway
Ten Years Ago
A bill authored by then-Assemblyman Anthony Portantino seeking to ban trucks on State Route 2 (Angeles Crest Highway) between Big Pines Highway and the Foothill (210) Freeway in La Cañada Flintridge was unanimously approved by the state Senate Appropriations Committee and was next headed to the Senate floor for approval. The action came on the heels of a Caltrans announcement it had extended for 30 days a previously established 90-day moratorium banning trucks on the route. The ban had been implemented April 6, 2009, five days after a runaway big rig crashed at the intersection of Angeles Crest and Foothill Boulevard, killing two and injuring several others.
Twenty Years Ago
A forum attended by representatives from the city, law enforcement, schools and churches studied the topic “Can Littleton Happen in La Cañada?” The event, sponsored by the Ecumenical Ministerial Assn. of La Cañada Flintridge and held at St. Bede Church was held as a proactive measure in the wake of the April 20, 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
Thirty Years Ago
A new corporate headquarters for Dilbeck Realtors was in the design process, with construction expected to begin in the latter part of 1989. The building site was at the southwest corner of Foothill Boulevard at Chevy Chase Drive where a Chevron service station once stood.
Forty Years Ago
International attention was focused on La Cañada Flintridge as the Voyager 2 spacecraft returned data collected during its close encounter with the planet Jupiter. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech managed the project for NASA.
Fifty Years Ago
Guy F. Atkinson Co. crews, under contract to the state Division of Highways, spent more than six weeks in the spring of 1969 digging a pit that was 700 feet long and 200 feet deep where once stood a section of Foothill Boulevard and the old La Cañada Elementary School campus. The work was in preparation for the construction of the Foothill (210) Freeway. A tunnel was eventually built there, allowing for the creation of Memorial Park atop it.
Sixty Years Ago
Plans to build a $3.5-million private country club, including a championship 18-hole golf course in the sagebrush-covered hills of La Cañada were revealed in July 1959 by builder and developer Bill Godbey. The club, with a tiered course, would take shape immediately above the north end of Gould Avenue. No name was given for the project, but it was later named La Cañada Country Club (today La Cañada Flintridge Country Club).
Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.
