I like to try to keep my blog posts well rounded - I want to include every community in the Jurupa area in this Jurupa History blog. So, without further adieu, I present Crestmore Heights! This small community is located right on the county line with San Bernardino. The community of Crestmore is located just across the county line and was named after the 1907 Crestmore subdivision. In 1926 Irvine and May Keith Biggar filed a subdivision map in the hills above Crestmore and called it Biggar's Crestmore Heights. (Irvine and May Keith? I think I better go back and make sure those names are correct!)
To reach Crestmore Heights, just go all the way out Rubidoux Boulevard and, there on the left, just before you reach the county line, is Crestmore Heights. Some of the houses in that area are quite old and I have some pictures of them in my Rubidoux book.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Jurupa Voting District
Because of the recent cityhood election I looked at portions of the voter registration rolls. One of the most puzzling things I saw was that the voting precinct in the area of Clay Park is called "Jurupa." I assumed that it was a recent name used because they ran out of place names in that area - Pedley and Indian Hills having been used for adjacent voting precincts. However, I just found out that my assumption is not correct. According to an article in the October 2, 1932 Los Angeles Times, the West Riverside district had five voting precincts at that time: Mira Loma, Glen Avon, Crestmore, West Riverside, and Jurupa. Crestmore was actually called Crestmore Heights and part of the Pedley area was known as Jurupa Heights. There was a Jurupa Heights water company and Pedley School was originally named Jurupa Heights. The Jurupa voting precinct was probably named after Jurupa Heights but the Registrar of Voters shortened the name for convenience sake. Another mystery of history at least partially solved!
Monday, June 13, 2011
If it weren't for Ida....
Local history is recorded by amateurs. I will fully admit that I am a local history amateur myself. All it takes is a love of history and a desire to write it down. It is a fact of life that cities generate more people who record local history than unincorporated areas. Our area, Jurupa Valley, suffered from that problem. One notable exception is a slim volume in a navy blue cover, "Jurupa: Peace and Friendship." Written by Ida Parks Condit, it was self published in 1984 when Ida was 73 years old. Ida worked very hard on this book and I am sure spent many many hours doing research in the days before the Internet. She was so sure of her research that she put the following statement at the bottom of her dedication page: "All the material in this book has been researched and is factual." Oh, if only I could feel so sure of the research and writing that I do!
However, as with all local history wrting, you have to read Ida's book with a bit of skeptisim in your heart. Any given piece of local history information is factual until you find a new fact that puts it in doubt! The title of Ida's book is a fine example. Someone wrote back in the day that "Jurupa" was the greeting that an Indian chief used to greet Juan Bautista DeAnza which meant "peace and friendship." If only it were so! Ida thought it was true and used it for her book title. I discussed the meaning of Jurupa in a previous blog post so I won't repeat it here, but it does not mean peace and friendship!!!
So, keeping in mind that new nuggets of history have been discovered since 1984, Ida's book is full of old stories, names and dates that we would not have if she had not written them down. Her hard work is the starting point for so much that I do in my own research and writing. It was through her book that I received my first introduction to Arthur and Mary Ann Parks. Their story is just as facinating as that of Louis Robidoux and Cornelius and Mercedes Jensen, but no one knows about it because they don't have a place named after them or a park devoted to their history. I have written about the Parks' for The Record. I will post more about them here in the future.
Meanwhile, I want to give a tip of the hat to Ida Parks Condit. Absolute perfection, while preferable, is not required in local history. Someone who will write history down is.
However, as with all local history wrting, you have to read Ida's book with a bit of skeptisim in your heart. Any given piece of local history information is factual until you find a new fact that puts it in doubt! The title of Ida's book is a fine example. Someone wrote back in the day that "Jurupa" was the greeting that an Indian chief used to greet Juan Bautista DeAnza which meant "peace and friendship." If only it were so! Ida thought it was true and used it for her book title. I discussed the meaning of Jurupa in a previous blog post so I won't repeat it here, but it does not mean peace and friendship!!!
So, keeping in mind that new nuggets of history have been discovered since 1984, Ida's book is full of old stories, names and dates that we would not have if she had not written them down. Her hard work is the starting point for so much that I do in my own research and writing. It was through her book that I received my first introduction to Arthur and Mary Ann Parks. Their story is just as facinating as that of Louis Robidoux and Cornelius and Mercedes Jensen, but no one knows about it because they don't have a place named after them or a park devoted to their history. I have written about the Parks' for The Record. I will post more about them here in the future.
Meanwhile, I want to give a tip of the hat to Ida Parks Condit. Absolute perfection, while preferable, is not required in local history. Someone who will write history down is.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Exploring History when I was a Kid
When I was in 2nd through 5th grades at Pacific Avenue Elementary School my best friend in the whole world was Myra Ratlief. I visited Myra at her house on Ave. Juan Bautista many times over the years. Behind her house were rolling fields and we would sometimes go wandering over hill and dale with her brother Jimmy and her sister Jeannie. There was a wooden structure that really intrigued us. We made up all kinds of stories about it, most having to do with Indians and sacrificing cattle. Kids, got to love their imaginations! I realize now that it was a ramp/chute that was designed to get cows up into a truck, a relic from Tom Clay’s 1001 Ranch. One of the joys of childhood is discovering the past, even if you don’t know until years later what it is you are discovering!
The 1001 Ranch covered many, many acres of land, including present-day Indian Hills, Jurupa Hills, and parts of Pedley. Tom Clay, a lawyer, bought the land from one of his clients in 1929 and then almost lost it himself during the Great Depression. He made other land purchases and by the 1950s owned over 2400 acres. Clay became well known for, among other things, the Appaloosa horses he raised on his ranch.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Glen Avon School
The first school in what is now known as Glen Avon was on Tyrolite Street. School was held in a little building that was more a shed than a school. When that was deemed inadequate, a man by the name of John R. Johnston donated two acres on Pyrite Street for a new school, the same site where Glen Avon School is located today. A one room schoolhouse was built on the site in 1895. It was a wooden building that faced Pyrite Street. By 1909 the student population at the school was a respectable 57 students in grades first through eighth. The school was not originally called Glen Avon. The entire area at that time was called West Riverside and so the new school was called by that name. Today's West Riverside School was called Jurupa School. Confused yet? In the 1908-09 school year the community around the West Riverside School decided to rename itself Glen Avon and the following school year the school and school district changed its name to Glen Avon as well.
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