Hi Gary,
I found your sites a couple of years ago and I check them periodically for what's new. I really appreciate what you're doing by documenting so much of the history of those San Gabriel Valley communities back when things seemed so much simpler than they are now.
I lived in La Puente from 1954 until 1959, on E. Doublegrove St. And I've never forgotten it, in some ways I think I've never gotten over it!
When we moved from Baldwin Park into the new house on Doublegrove St, I was six years old. Ours was then the last house on the street, and there was no street beyond our place either, just a dirt track up into the San Jose Hills. A drainage ditch ran behind our place, and beyond it, clear to Francisquito Ave, there were orange groves. On the very rare clear days back then (you remember how bad the smog was, don't you?) we could see Mt. Baldy in our living room picture window, the mountain standing out brilliant white -- it always seemed to have snow -- above the rest of the San Gabriels.
Soon enough, though, the orange trees were ripped out and burned, and San Jose Elementary School and some houses were built between our place and Francisquito. The places across Francisquito still had acreage, and some had stands of orange trees. One day, in the fourth grade, a friend and I were digging around in the schoolyard at San Jose school, and we found some Indian artifacts, a mano and metate, and we were duly written up in the local paper. Whether it was the Tribune or not, though, I don't recall.
The freeway wasn't built out as far as La Puente and West Covina until 1956 or even 1957, and I remember going up to the top of the hill by our house and watching it being graded further and further east from wherever it stopped (I don't remember exactly where that was any more). I also watched the building of Eastland Shopping Center from the top of that hill. You could see clear to Pomona and the lights of the LA County Fair from the top.
A lot of the pictures that you've posted bring back very clear memories, but surprisingly, some don't. For example, I don't remember ever seeing the Donut Hole in La Puente or the Huddle Restaurant at Eastland, though we'd go to Eastland all the time after it opened, and I'm sure we were out by the Donut Hole relatively often. I just don't recall seeing them, and it's kind of frustrating in my old age!
A couple of things you may or may not remember:
There was a market on Francisquito called Stassi & Humphrey where we got our groceries before the Food Giant was built. It was very old fashioned, with wooden floor boards and schoolhouse lighting. I remember that you had to have your bread sliced by the man behind the counter who ran this loud -- and kind of scary -- multibladed machine that sliced the bread in about a second. I wondered how he didn't get his hand sliced, too!
Then when we wanted to go to a fancy dinner, we'd go up to El Encanto above Azusa in the mountains by the San Gabriel River -- and practically in another world altogether. On the way back home, the lights of the Los Angeles basin were spread out below, all the way to forever.
Of course we went to the Great Wall for Chinese, and Clifton's Cafeteria for a treat now and then. My favorites though were the A&W and Bob's Big Boy.
Thanks for triggering a lot of fond memories. Keep up the good work!
FROM BR FELIX brfelix@hotmail.com
