Saturday, August 22, 2026

Covina High History

If I were to give a one-sentence description of what I do here, it'd be "Fact-checking Covina history." Typically that involves the distant past, but recently I read a post on the Covina High Facebook page that said the school began "its 130th year" when classes opened this past week. I posted a comment suggesting the math didn't look right and someone replied with this graphic of the school's official logo. Sure enough, right there it says, "EST. 1897," and I know for certain that's incorrect. So a-fact-checking we must go!


To be precise, the stated date is two years too early. Pflueger (1964), the newspaper record, and even the school district itself agree: Covina High opened in 1899.1,2,3,4 But why stop there? Might as well cover all the other important CHS dates while I'm at it. So the following is mostly a copy/paste of my Covina Past FB post of yesterday, though this time with footnote references and discussion.

Friday, August 14, 2026

The 39 Freeway

Among the material I collected at City Hall during my interview with Mayor Frank Haven in January, 1971, was a then-current Chamber of Commerce road map of Covina.1 Of particular interest to me was the vicinity map on the reverse which showed a proposed freeway passing through the city limits of both Covina and West Covina.


This map detail shows only one of several possible routings that were under consideration at the time.

Thursday, August 13, 2026

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 San Bernardino Road, Second, Fourth, and even areas south of Puente would have either been demolished and repurposed, or expanded in some way.

The Town Center plan also called for condemning whole neighborhoods of single-family homes to be replaced by high-density housing and offices, rerouting thru traffic away from Citrus Avenue over onto Second while turning the main street itself into a pedestrian-friendly shopping mall, 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.

 

Friday, August 7, 2026

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!

 

Saturday, August 1, 2026

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.

 

 

Thursday, July 23, 2026

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:

Wednesday, July 22, 2026

New Pages

Visitors to this blog are invited to read Covina Past's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. Links to these new pages are provided below, as well as in the footer of the main page and in the footer of every post.

Terms and Conditions

Privacy Policy

Both documents are subject to change without notice.

I should say, I only recently learned that legalities of this nature are mandated to conform with regulatory laws in this and other countries. I trust these documents will suffice to satisfy said requirements. If anyone notes any deficiencies, discrepancies or has any questions regarding these policies, please inform me via the Contact Form in the sidebar below. Thank you.

 

Monday, June 22, 2026

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.

Monday, June 1, 2026

The Badilla Foreclosure

The story of the Badilla coffee venture in the 1870s is the genesis chapter of Covina history. The families of Julian and Antonio Badilla were the first to settle the north region of Rancho La Puente, and had they not lost their land to foreclosure in 1879, Covina as we know it today would not have been born. J. E. Hollenbeck's lawsuit changed the course of our history, but the passage of time has obscured the events and people involved. Long assumed lost, I recently found the official court records for Hollenbeck vs. Badilla et al., and what they reveal will significantly broaden our understanding of Covina's past.

The court case that set the stage for Covina's birth.
Source: Los Angeles area court records, 1850-1911, Call number: mssLAACR, Item number: 05091, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.


Because this article is rather lengthy, I'm going to begin with some tl;dr bullets of my principal findings:

• Contrary to legend, the Badillas did grow coffee here, and wheat in abundance. Their only failure was financial.

• The old story also said Antonio Badillo was a debtor landowner whose mortgage was foreclosed, and that entire characterization was false.

• The Badillas did not use any of their own money to buy the land in Rancho La Puente. Instead, the Badillas and Rowlands arranged a seller-financed mortgage for the $45,000 purchase price.

     —The down payment of $15,000 was borrowed from the Commercial Bank of Los Angeles.

     —The $30,000 balance was financed with two one-year-term $15,000 promissory notes.

• Plaintiff Hollenbeck was not the original mortgage holder. Rather, he purchased the Badillas' delinquent mortgage from the Rowlands, then foreclosed.

• Hollenbeck did not buy the former Badilla land at the Sheriff's auction, he was granted title to it as payment-in-full for the court's decree.

• Two future California politicians were involved with this case. The judge was a member of the influential Sepúlveda family, and the Badillas' defense attorney went on to become a United States Senator.

The Badillo Legend

In my 2021 article about Hollenbeck and the Badillas, I presented proof that several elements of the familiar Badillo story were untrue. Now, after years of further research and studying these newly-discovered court records in particular, I'm more certain than ever that the narrative once considered historical fact long ago crossed over into the realm of fiction.

The most complete telling of the Badillo legend is found in Donald Pflueger's Covina (1964), and can be summarized as follows:

Julian and Antonio Badillo were wealthy Costa Rican plantation owners who met Hollenbeck when he lived in Central America. Hollenbeck convinced the Badillos to leave Costa Rica and grow coffee in southern California. About 1875, the brothers bought 5,500 acres of Rowland land in Rancho La Puente for $4 an acre. However, being unfamiliar with the area's semi-arid climate, the Badillos failed twice to grow coffee. Julian got discouraged and left, but Antonio stayed and borrowed large sums of money from the Los Angeles bank of which Hollenbeck was principal stockholder. Antonio tried growing other crops, but he failed at that as well and defaulted on his loan. The bank foreclosed on Antonio in 1879 and Hollenbeck purchased all the former Badillo land for $16,692. Then in 1880, Hollenbeck deeded 100 acres back to Antonio as a gift.1

For more than a half-century before and after Pflueger's book, this was considered settled history.

Real Facts Emerge

In 2011, however, descendants of Julian Badilla discovered their genealogical connection to his 1870s coffee experiment in Rancho La Puente, and new historical facts came to light.

Monday, May 18, 2026

The First Settler in West Covina, 1904

It may be difficult to believe, but a section of the East San Gabriel Valley that is now home to about a hundred thousand people was basically uninhabited until 1904. Before then, the land south of today's Interstate 10 between the San Gabriel River and Glendora Avenue in West Covina was not yet irrigable, so the area lagged behind Covina in terms of development by almost two decades. At the time, the land was still part of "Lucky" Baldwin's division of Rancho La Puente, and nothing much went on there except for a few cattle grazing on the wild wheat.

In 1904, though, Baldwin started subdividing this portion of his ranch, and the first tract was surveyed in March of that year.1 H. T. Cotton bought the 810-acre subdivision six months later for $121,5002 and named it "El Monte Walnut Place."3 Not because it was in El Monte (it wasn't—that was just the closest town then), and not because there were walnuts being grown there, either—there weren't any yet—but the soil and lay of the land seemed perfect for them, if only someone could find a way to water the trees.

Then, just three weeks after Coffin bought Walnut Place, he made his first sale to a gentleman from actual El Monte named Robert E. Dancer. The property was described in the newspaper as "thirty-three acres...about one-half mile north of Bassett Station."4 Mr. Dancer then drilled for water and found a gusher of it at a relatively shallow depth. Word got around, and before you knew it, a small land rush ensued, and the district known as "Walnut Center" was born.5 And since Walnut Center was the immediate forerunner of today's West Covina, local historians have long pointed to Robert Dancer as its first settler.

What nobody in later years really knew, though, was the precise location of Dancer's pioneering farmstead. (A "half mile north of Bassett Station" is a clue, but far from an exact one.) Over time, many plausible educated guesses have been put forth, but the actual location of Dancer's ranch has remained a mystery for decades.

Now because I've had really good luck lately finding old deeds with the legal descriptions of many pioneer lands in Covina, I thought I might try to find Robert Dancer's, too. Fortunately, copies of those deeds are relatively easy to obtain from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's Office in Norwalk. (Also fortunately, even someone who lives 700 miles away like me can place an order online and get them, too.)

Well, just today, I got the deed, and now we can tell exactly where Robert Dancer's ranch was! The legal description is as follows...1,6

Saturday, May 16, 2026

Covina Wikipedia Article

Spent the last 5 days working on improving the Wikipedia article on Covina. For years, the History section of that page has been the single worst source of misinformation about Covina's past on the whole internet. It was the exact opposite of what it should be, and an absolute disgrace to anyone who really knows or cares about the details of Covina history. The references cited were very weak, too; in almost every case they weren't authoritative sources at all, just websites that repeated the same distortions of events we've been told all our lives.

So I finally got fed up and decided to basically start from scratch and make the History section the absolute best quick source of information about Covina's bygone days that inquiring minds can find anywhere.

I didn't edit the whole History section, though. There's still stuff at the bottom that needs tidying up or moved to other sections. But paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 are all "New and Improved!" by Yours Truly. Have a look!


Click on the image go to the History section on Wikipedia.

And here are the new references I cited. You'll notice almost all of them consist of primary source material, like original deeds and newspaper reports written at the time the historical events actually occurred. So many definitive references here!


Click on the image go to the References section on Wikipedia.

I know I should have done this a long time ago, but editing Wikipedia is no simple task. It can be pretty intimidating, and exhausting, too. So 5 days of it is quite enough for me, at least for now. *whew!*

 

Friday, May 8, 2026

Compromise Line Road

I hope my dozen or so regular readers will pardon me if I write about someplace other than Covina just once. ;-)

Although I was born and raised in Covina, I lived my first five years on East Foothill Boulevard in Glendora, so consequently, the history of our neighbor to the north is a natural area of interest to me.

The subject is not far out of bounds geographically, either, as both Covina and Glendora share partial origins in a historical Mexican land grant called Rancho San José Adición (aka Rancho Addition to San Jose) which just happens to be the broader topic of this article. Most of Covina's Charter Oak neighborhood lies within Adición's borders, so I'm not really straying too far afield here.

Anyway, even as a child, I had a keen interest in roads and maps which really took off after I discovered my dad's Renie Atlas around age 12 (same time as my interest in Covina history, hmm!). Probably not long after that, the name of one street in particular from my Glendora years aroused my curiosity: "Compromise Line Road." Always wondered what that meant. Somewhere in my early readings of local history, I did learn that it involved a dispute over a northern boundary of Rancho Addition to San Jose, but I never could find out much more than that.


Compromise Line Road in Glendora. Source: Renie Atlas of Los Angeles City and County, 1965 edition.


Recently I was contacted by an old classmate who asked about Compromise Line, and desiring to know more than the basics I'd heard long ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the subject. Obvious first stop reference-wise was Donald Pflueger's Glendora (1951), but unfortunately his mention of Compromise Line Road was so nonspecific as to be no help at all. Then I searched the newspaper archive, and that was a similar dead-end.

Saturday, May 2, 2026

Changes

Although the sometime long gaps between posts might make it appear I'm only doing this part-time, the truth is that even if I'm not actively working on a new article, I'm involved with some aspect of this blog every day. I'm always trying to improve it and make it the best it can be. Whether it's browsing the newspaper archive looking for new material, fact-checking, correcting errors, or making an older post more informative or readable, this is basically my full-time job.

Consequently, an article you read 2 or 3 years ago (or even 2 or 3 weeks ago) might have been altered significantly since. The following is a list of those changes—from major ones to minor—and in reverse chronological order.

Important revisions: (i.e. re-reading highly recommended)
Remembering Bob Ihsen, Mark Thiel and Dave Rogers—Added two more recent deaths and changed the title.
Badillo Mystery Solved?—Lots of wording changes, style improvements, and a re-stated conclusion.
When Was Covina Founded?—Some important date changes and clarified wording.
Covina Hills Road—New intro, facts, conclusion, and map.
The Ruddock Mansion—Many new historical details!
Oak Canyon Road—Rewritten basically from scratch. (I'm really pleased with this one. Definite improvement!)

New post images:
The Hollenbeck Palms—Added another 1906 postcard view, this one looking south from San Bernardino Road.
Italia—Added a photo of E. R. Richmond, Italia Cook's father.
Original Covina Landowners—Corrected a couple of errors in the parcel map.
Citrus Avenue, 1938—Added a view of the 200 block of North Citrus.
Covina's Old Neighbors—New map with adjusted labels for Walnut Center and the Hollenbeck Ranch.
Hollenbeck and the Badillas—Corrected the southern boundary of the Badilla Tract on the 1877 map.

Minor updates:
The Tract, Trials and Tribulations of Joseph Phillips—Some wording and style adjustments.
Untold Stories of Hollenbeck and Phillips—Same as above.
Mayors of Covina—One missing name added to the list.
Old Covina High, 1961—Corrected the date that the campus was razed.
Covina Valley Panorama, 1930—Changed the year the photo was taken, the year Lark Ellen bought her Cameron Avenue estate, and some photo label IDs.
Driving Around the Groves—Made the description more readable.

Always being updated:
Covina History Timeline—Now over 200 entries!

Due for a complete rewrite:
The Baptist Seminary—I really must do better than this.

Might actually be a good idea if I made a list of changes every few months, just so everyone can stay right up to date with the greatest Covina history blog there ever was!

 

Friday, April 24, 2026

Covina in the Aughts

Citrus Avenue again, only this time about a half-century earlier. This photo was fairly easy to date, and very precisely, too.


Looking north on Citrus Avenue from Badillo Street, Covina, January, 1907. Clarence Tucker, photographer.
Click on the image to view an enlargement. Photo courtesy Covina Valley Historical Society and Powell Camera Shop (RIP).


Even before looking anything up, on the basis of a past search, I knew this picture had to be taken between 1903-1909 due to the presence of Franz Richter's bicycle repair shop in the far distance near Citrus's intersection with College. But, the obvious clincher was the banner hanging over the middle of the street. It reads:

Thursday, April 23, 2026

Citrus Avenue in the Fifties

Here we have two nice, detailed mid-century views of Covina's busy Citrus Avenue. The photos are undated, but examining certain clues, I think I can come up with some pretty good educated guesses as to when they were taken.

In this first one, the newest car I see is that 1952 Ford Convertible just left of center. That model was introduced in Fall, 1951. However, the photo has to have been taken later than September, 1952, because that's when Faye's Maternity Shop to the left of the Ford opened at 111 North Citrus,1 and that place does look essentially brand new here. So, 1952 seems like a safe bet for this view.


Looking north on Citrus Avenue from Badillo Street, Covina, 1952.
Click on the image to view an enlargement. Photo courtesy Covina Valley Historical Society and Powell Camera Shop (RIP).

(As an aside, I like how several kids evidently felt comfortable leaving their bikes parked on the street while they went to a show at the theater.)

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Packing House Ladies, c.1900

Also found these pictures on the Huntington Digital Library site last night. Actually I've seen thumbnails of these pics many times before, but I never took a real close look at them until now. I was more than a little surprised by what I saw...

I knew it was common for women to work in these fruit packing houses, but I did not know they did so dressed in such fancy, fashionable finery!


Workers in the A.C.G. Packing House, Covina, c.1900. C. C. Pierce Photography Collection.
Courtesy of The Huntington Digital Library, San Marino, CA. Link to full-res image.

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Two Home Towns

Here's something I never thought I'd see: a postcard sent from McKinleyville—my home town of the last quarter-century—to the home town of my birth, Covina, back when both burgs were basically backwoods backwaters that no one ever heard of.


"Ethel" mailed this postcard to "Elvin Gilmore Esq." in Covina in 1909. The somewhat cringe novelty side can be viewed by clicking here.


Let's see if we can figure out the connection between these two home towns of mine!

Monday, March 30, 2026

Facebook Page

I decided to give social media a try and create a Facebook page to hopefully boost this blog's readership. Check it out!

Covina Past on Facebook

Presently, I plan to populate the page with short teasers to my blog's "greatest hits," some of the more interesting vintage photos of Covina I've collected, and links to new articles as they appear here. I'll still update the Twitter/X account with those same new article notifications, but that's about all that site was ever good for. I doubt my blog got a single new reader going that route.

In other news, I've been working on multiple different topics for new posts lately, which unfortunately is actually proving to be more of an impediment to my productivity than anything else. I really should try to stick to just one subject at a time. That's the way I've always been used to working, anyway.

More to come soon! And do please Like and share the new Facebook page! This blog needs all the help it can get. :-)

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Old Neighbor Remembers

I'll be frank—I don't generally care for oral histories. Reason being, people's memories of past events tend to be embellished or even just plain mistaken; my own being no exception. However, every once in a while, I chance upon an oral account that's really interesting and even compelling in its particulars, and this one—published for the city's 51st anniversary commemoration—is one I believe worthy of historical preservation, in spite of its anonymous authorship. So, with no further ado...

From the Covina Argus of October 18, 1935:

Saturday, March 7, 2026

The Hollenbeck Palms

Recently, I added this very early C. W. Tucker photo postcard to my Covina ephemera collection.


Click on the image above to view a clean enlargement.

Although the view looks very different today, and the palms are way taller now, I doubt someone who grew up in Covina would have too much difficulty recognizing where this picture was taken.

But, just in case not, we are looking north on Hollenbeck Avenue from only a few feet north of its intersection with Badillo Street.

And the year? Well, let's play history detective and see what we can come up with!

Sunday, March 1, 2026

Covina Past at 100

For this blog's 100th post, I thought a little retrospective might be in order. There've been quite a few changes here at Covina Past since I created this account in 2012. Suffice it to say, it's a very different site now versus what it used to be.

Friday, January 16, 2026

Lysle Writes Home

Once upon a time, a young man named Lysle C. Ummel1 visited Covina, and while he was here, he bought four picture postcards of the place and sent them back to relatives in Fremont, Nebraska.

Lysle must have mailed them all together in an envelope, because they have no postmarks and thus are not readily datable. However, various clues in the photo of Citrus Avenue made it possible for me to determine that particular picture was taken in 1919.

The familiar view below looking north on Citrus from Badillo. Lysle went on to become an electrical engineer,2 so that perhaps explains his pointing out the precise location of the Edison office at the time.


Click on the image to view an enlargement (and click here to view Lysle's message on the verso).

So how did I figure out the year? Let's start out with that blade sign on the Chapman-Workmen building at left. Turns out that "Winder & Jones" were in business at that location from 1919 to 1926,3 so that narrowed the range of possible dates right away. The Covina Theatre isn't there across the street yet, so that narrows things even further to 1919-1921.4 But the clincher was the license plates, as 1919 was the last year between 1919 and 1921 that California plates were white.5

Here are the other two postcards with white borders, which I feel safe in assuming are also from 1919.

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Italia

You're about to make the acquaintance of a remarkable woman who, as you'll see, merits a far more prominent place in Covina history than the mere footnotes she's been relegated to in the past...

As has often been the case, my initial inspiration for an article was a postcard. This particular specimen first attracted my interest because of the handwritten inscription indicating the house owned by Mr. Clapp, the druggist, from whose store came this antique medicine bottle: the subject of one of my earliest posts here.


View looking southwest along the west side of the 200 block of North Second Street, Covina, c.1908. "Rose" mailed this hand-colored M. Rieder postcard from Lordsburg (La Verne) on January 2, 1908. Click image to view an enlargement.


The Clapps were an important family in early Covina, and I'll have more to say about them later, but the actual main character in my present story is Mrs. Clapp's mother—Mrs. Italia Cook—who lived in the big house at far right.

The published histories barely mention Italia, but she was easily the most propertied and most philanthropic woman in Covina at the turn of the last century, and now here, at long last, this pioneer-era force of nature is going to get the full recognition she's due.