Covina Town Center, 1968-1972

Probably not many people now remember (or maybe never even knew) that in the late Sixties, the City of Covina proposed a major redevelopment project that would have essentially wiped out the old downtown as we know it.

It was called the Covina Town Center, and had it gone through as planned, almost everything lying in the area bounded by Second, Puente, Fourth and San Bernardino Road would have either been demolished and repurposed, or expanded in some way. It also involved condemning entire neighborhoods of single-family homes to be replaced by high-density housing, rerouting thru traffic away from Citrus over onto Second, and all of it crowned by a new administrative Civic Center complex with a concert hall-sized Civic Auditorium.¹

Source: Covina Chamber of Commerce.¹ Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Despite vocal opposition, the Town Center proposal actually passed a vote of the city council and was set to break ground in February, 1971. The month previous to that, I wrote a 19-page report on the project for my high school civics class, the research for which included an in-person interview with Mayor Frank Haven (in office 1968-1972), who was basically the Town Center's principal proponent.²

I was away at college when the Town Center plan was finally scrapped, so I never heard why none of it ended up happening, but I'm sure glad now that it died on the vine. (If anyone can fill me in on the details of why the proposal ultimately failed, I would surely appreciate it.)

References:

¹ "Covina's New Town Center," Covina Chamber of Commerce, 1970, 2pp.
² "Should the City of Covina Have a New Civic Center?," A Civics Project by Scott Shannon & Terry Dunn, January 20, 1971, 19+2pp.

 

Impermanence

*sighs* It looks like I'm going to have to write a book, after all...

All these years, I've been operating under the assumption that, even if I died, my blog would remain hosted on Blogger indefinitely, but it turns out that's not true. I recently discovered that, if my account is not logged into on a regular basis, after a certain period of time, my blog will be automatically deleted.

This on top of the fact I always knew that, after I passed, at least the images here would soon disappear, because all of those are on my private hosting, which would terminate after my credit cards were canceled. Gone right there would be half my blog's informational content, but I assumed that at least the text of it would remain. Nope. Even that would eventually vanish forever, too.

So, it appears the only option left to preserve my years of historical research is to turn my blog into a book. (Or, considering the amount of material, maybe even two or three.)

I know right off the bat that I'd have to self-publish, but I have no idea (yet) how to go about that. Anybody have any suggestions?

What I do feel fairly certain about already, though, is what's going to be in that book (subject to change without notice, of course):

• Preface: A Dedication (expanded to include others, as well)
• The San Bernardino Road (rewritten to cover early ESGV history in general)
• Hollenbeck and the Badillas
• The Badilla Foreclosure
• Untold Stories of Hollenbeck and Phillips
• The Tract, Trials and Tribulation of Joseph Phillips
• When Was Covina Founded?
• Who Really Named Covina?
• The Founder's House
• Badillo Mystery Solved?
• The Oldest House/Building in Covina
• Covina Hills Road
• Italia
• The Baseball Champs of '09
• The First Lady of Covina History

• Appendices: Covina History Timeline, Covina Schools Timeline

Plus three in-depth histories I've been working on for a while now:

• The Hollenbeck Ranch
• Mountain View and the Ruddock Family in Covina
• California Preparatory School (including the Theosophical Society and the Baptist Seminary)

That said, you know how I feel about books! Once you set something down in print, it might as well be set in stone, because you can't go back and edit errors or add new information. But, like I said, I really don't have any choice. Gotta bite the bullet now and get 'er done!

 

Covina Farms

Formerly located at 731 North Grand Avenue on the northwest corner with Edna Place, Covina Farms was a shopping staple for many local families for over a quarter century. It began as an open-air produce and meat market in August, 1955,¹ and expanded to a full-service grocery in September of 1956.² Long-time owners Ray and Sumiko Okura bought the store in November, 1957.³

My mom loved Covina Farms. ❤️ She got all our meats there. Not only did they have the best quality in town, their butcher shop had lockers you could rent, then buy meat in bulk and store it in their deep freeze. The fresh fruit and vegetables couldn't be beat, either. My favorite part was the big newsstand where I'd read a Mad magazine or comic book while Mom shopped. 😉

Mr. Okura passed away in February, 1977,⁴ and although I'm speculating here, that could have been what set in motion the eventual end of Covina Farms in July, 1981.⁵ Only a few short months later, Blake Paper Co. took over at 731 N. Grand⁶ and ran a successful business out of that location for many more years. The old building was finally torn down in 2013.⁷ A new Circle K store, gas station and car wash were constructed on the site and opened in 2021.⁷

I wish I had a picture of Covina Farms, but the best I can do is show you this old shopping bag that I found when I was closing up my parents' house in Covina in 1988. (Mom was quite the packrat.) 😊 It's the only memento I have of the friendly little local market where we shopped probably more times than any other.

References:

¹ Covina Argus-Citizen, August 11, 1955, p.3.
² Covina Argus-Citizen, September 13, 1956, p.31.
³ Covina Argus-Citizen, October 31, 1957, p.28.
⁴ Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1977, p.24.
⁵ Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1981, p.207.
⁶ Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1982, p.617.
⁷ Posted comments by Covina residents in the "I Grew Up in Covina" Facebook group.

 

 

Ira Stanton and Kin

The other day, Dave Armbruster of the Covina Valley Historical Society asked if I could help with info about this photo. The caption read, "Ira Stanton Hauling Oranges," and Dave wondered what I could find out about the gentleman.

Built in 1913, the Covina Heights Groves, Inc., packing house was located on the SPRR line just east of the northeast corner of Front and First Streets.
Ira Stanton's brother, Pliny (b.1877), was Manager,¹ and also co-owner of the Stanton grove,² so perhaps Pliny took this picture of his brother atop their wagon.

I discovered a lot about Ira and his kinfolk, but three things stood out as noteworthy:

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Citizen Casad

If you've followed my blog for any significant length of time, you know I enjoy collecting old Covina postcards and learning about the people who wrote/received them. Well, this may not be a postcard, but in terms of discovering someone, I really hit the jackpot here!

To see the Hollywood received postmark on the verso, click here.

The first thing I noticed about this old envelope was its fine-grade Irwindale postmark. (Irwindale in this case being the original Irwindale, i.e. turn-of-the-last-century West Covina, not the modern-day incorporated city to our northwest.) Then I pondered the fancy cursive that closely resembled my grandmother's, and deciphered the addressee's last name as "Casad." Ahh, that's a street in Covina/WC! Could this maybe be the person it's named after? Then, only minutes later, a quick newspaper search introduced me to Mr R. C. Casad, who has turned out to be one of the more remarkable historical Covina personages I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

In our Civics class at South Hills, I remember Mr. Douglas telling us that the framers of the Constitution intended that Congress be comprised of regular citizens elected by the community who would then come to the nation's capital for a two-year term and represent their constituents. Sounded great on paper, but of course, the system we ended up with was career politicians representing their party and themselves over and above anything else. Not so great...

Covina's Roland C. Casad, however, was a throwback to the Founders' ideal, and much more—a common man who sought not only to stand for his district, but who sincerely desired to improve the lives of all the people and bring prosperity to the entire country. To that end, he tirelessly ran for national elected office 11 times from 1932-1948, including 4 times for president.