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.

When I first started posting, my intent was simply to share personal memories of growing up in Covina. Sometimes I'd find an old postcard or some other vintage item and write a little about it. And most times, my posts contained a lot more pictures than text. A pretty casual approach overall.

Then, about ten years ago, I began adopting a more scholarly/analytical approach to Covina history. Applying research skills I honed during my career as a field biologist, I started doing deep-dives into primary source material like online newspaper and photo archives, and writing about subjects that previous Covina historians had overlooked or perhaps never even knew about.

And the deeper I dove into these primary sources, I came to realize that, over the span of many generations, quite a few of the stories we think of as "accepted" Covina history had drifted away from their factual roots and crossed over into the realm of legend.

Consequently, one of the main tasks I've taken upon myself here is to fact-check the old stories and reset them to their original form. I do that mostly by referencing published accounts that were written during the actual time period of an historical event. Granted, those may be factually tainted, as well, but almost certainly less so than tales handed down across centuries.

In this undertaking, I believe in absolute intellectual honesty and meticulous referencing to primary sources. All those footnotes at the end of my articles are there for a reason: I want people to be able to fact-check everything for themselves, and prove to their own satisfaction that the statements I make are true. I don't expect anyone to just take my word for anything, especially when I'm presenting new findings.

That said, another principal purpose of my blog is to discover and present new Covina history that no one's written about before, and in addition, to tell the stories of Covinans of note that other historians overlooked. (In that vein, I'm particularly proud of my recent article about the remarkable Italia Cook.)

The following are a few examples of local history you'll find in Covina Past and nowhere else:

• Documentation asserting that 1884 and 1885 are the only historically accurate dates that can be cited for the origin year of Covina.

• A credible alternative account of how Covina got its name.

• Identifying the oldest buildings and the oldest house in Covina.

• The sad tale of how Covina's first historian was herself wrongfully written out of history and all of the credit for her work given to her assistant.

• Published evidence proving that the enterprising immigrant Badillo [sic] Brothers (J. Julián and P. Antonio Badilla) were not "failures" in any sense of the word.

• An objective analysis suggesting the practical reason Julián and Antonio Badilla used the name "Badillo" when they lived and engaged in commerce here.

• Documentary proof that Antonio Badilla was never a co-owner of the Badilla Tract (1876-1878), nor was he a named party in J. E. Hollenbeck's foreclosure action against his two elder brothers.

• The great ironies that Joseph Phillips—founder of Covina—lost his land to foreclosure just like the elder Badilla brothers lost theirs, and the surprising fact that Phillips never held legal title to the tract which bore his name.

• In the Covina Hills, the stories of: the Baptist Seminary, Charles Jobe's Memorial Glen, Wally Moon's Baseball Summer Camp, Featherstone Quarry, Oak Canyon Road and old Covina Hills Road.

• In Charter Oak, the history of the lost Ruddock Mansion, "Mountain View".

• That time in '09 when the Chicago White Sox came to Covina to play our Local Nine.

• Insights into the Covina chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

• The Japanese pioneers of West Covina.

• The origins of San Bernardino Road and Arrow Highway.

• And last but certainly not least, a comprehensive timeline of Covina's history: my blog's most-viewed article of all.

And what of Covina Past's future? Some have reasonably suggested that the logical next step for me would be to go beyond blogging and write a proper book on Covina history. I could certainly do that, I suppose, but to be honest, I actually prefer blogging over traditional publishing. Main reason being that super-convenient feature called an "edit button." If I publish a post here and I get relevant new information later on, I can simply add it to the existing article. Can't do that with a book! As far as I'm concerned, that's a big argument against committing anything to physical print.

As far as future topics go, I would really like to write a lot more about recent Covina history; namely the post-war period most of us grew up in. But it's really difficult to do that because I lack access to the relevant sources, like local newspapers. Accordingly, if I had one wish, it's that Newspapers.com would make the back issues of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune available in their archive. If I had access to those, I could probably crank out a new article every week, instead of catch-as-catch-can, as is the situation I have now.

In the meantime, I'll just plug away at doing what I've been doing for as long as I can continue doing it!