Frontier Days In Crescenta Valley

Modern Crescenta Valley practically defines the notion of quiet suburbia with its lovely homes and tree-lined streets. Yet the communities that lie north of Los Angeles between the Verdugo and San Gabriel Mountains once formed a vast, isolated, treeless, windstorm-swept dell. The settlers who stayed in this valley found day-to-day subsistence challenging. They farmed, hunted, tried bee ranching, gathered greasewood, cultivated vineyards and dodged rattlesnakes. As settlement in the area continued to develop, such refinements as literature and photography flourished. Join author Jo Anne Sadler as she brings the Valley's frontier days to life, recounting such quirks as a visit from a "rainmaker" and the reasons behind the construction of the gaudy local landmark the Gould Castle.

As Crescenta Valley residents gathered to ring in the 1934 New Year, a cloudburst broke over Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains, unleashing a deluge on mountainsides denuded by recent fires. A roaring wall of rocks, mud and water crashed down the canyons, uprooting trees, tossing boulders and automobiles like toys and carving a path of destruction. Using painstaking research and heart-rending firsthand accounts, historian Art Cobery paints a picture of survival and redemption in the face of natural disaster, including the heroic efforts of eleven-year-old Marcie Warfield to save her father and younger brother, the devastating debris flow that claimed the lives of refugees and aid workers at the American Legion Hall and the selfless acts of neighbors caught in the storm of events.

Explore Lansing's role in the war to preserve the Union and end slavery When war erupted between North and South, the capital of Michigan was ready to serve. The population of Lansing in 1860 was only 3000, but by the spring of 1865, over 500 men from the Capital City had enlisted to fight. These citizen-soldiers left the farms, factories, shops and schools of their youths to fight to uphold the Union and end slavery. Many of these boys would be wounded, captured, or killed, and those fortunate enough to return, came home changed, permanently maimed, and often haunted men. Using primary sources, including letters and personal diaries, author Matthew J. VanAcker unfolds the story of uncommon valor that offers a glimpse into the lives of the soldiers, their families, and the city they left behind.

Their names run deep through local history and lore, adorning street signs, canyons, historical buildings, homes and ranches in the swath of suburbia between Pasadena and Tujunga, where the towns of La Crescenta and La Ca ada took shape, along with the unique community of Montrose. Profiled in the pages of Crescenta Valley Pioneers and Their Legacies by author Jo Anne Sadler, a researcher and frequent writer for the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, are such singularly important local characters as Theodor Pickens, the first permanent settler; Dr. Benjamin B. Briggs, the founder of La Crescenta; Jacob L. Lanterman and Adolphus W. Williams, the original developers of Rancho La Ca ada; and the Le Mesnager family, whose historic wine barn still stands in Deukmejian Wilderness Park.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Los Angeles rose to significance in the first half of the twentieth century by way of its complex relationship to three rivers: the Los Angeles, the Owens, and the Colorado. The remarkable urban and suburban trajectory of southern California since then cannot be fully understood without reference to the ways in which each of these three river systems came to be connected to the future of the metropolitan region. This history of growth must be understood in full consideration of all three rivers and the challenges and opportunities they presented to those who would come to make Los Angeles a global power. Full of primary sources and original documents, Water and Los Angeles will be of interest to both students of Los Angeles and general readers interested in the origins of the city.