New Jurupa Valley Council Chambers

The City of Jurupa Valley is leasing the former Sam's Western Wear building which will be used for city council and planning commission meetings. I met Sandra Stokley, a reporter for the Press-Enterprise, at the building today to see the progress that is being made. The reason I wanted to go was to see the part of the building that is the 1927 era Pedley School. So cool!!!! Sandra's story is already online. The link to the story is below:  

http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/riverside/riverside-headlines-index/20120730-jurupa-valley-new-council-chamber-evokes-history.ece?ssimg=661841#ssStory661846

This Date in History

I am starting a new feature today. As you might have noticed it will be called "This Date in History." Once a week I will be looking to see what happend in Jurupa Valley history on that date.

Today it will be July 26th, 1916. On this date the County Board of Supervisors let the contract for the constuction of the Pedley Bridge, the very first bridge to be built over the Santa Ana River in the Pedley area.

Wicked Jurupa is Here!

I am very happy to report that Wicked Jurupa Valley:Murder and Misdeeds in Rural Southern California is finally here! A big box of books arrived at my front door and it is also available at HistoryPress.com and Amazon.com. A Kindle version is also available at Amazon.com. Wicked Jurupa Valley will also be available in local stores if you like to shop locally, but I have not heard yet if it is actually in the usual places such as DeAnza True Value Hardware, Walgreen's, and the Jurupa Mountains Cultural Center. I will let you know as soon as I find out.

If you want to check my author's page at Amazon.com you can find it at   https://www.amazon.com/author/kimjj

If you would like, feel free to hit the like button or write a review (once you get to read the book, of course!) on Amazon. I would really appreciate that!  

How the new park got its name

I attended the grand opening of the newest park in Jurupa Valley, Centennial Park, this morning. It is located at the corner of Jurupa Road and Camino Real. The park, which is also a flood control basin,  can accommodate up to eight children's soccer games at one time, which is a great addition to the number of soccer fields we have in Jurupa Valley. The landscape architect who helped plan the park took questions for the audience. It probably won't surprise you to find out that I wanted to know where the name of Centennial Park came from. The story is that since the flood control basin was designed to handle a 100 year flood event, the board of the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District decided, some 20 odd years ago, that the park in the basin should be named "Centennial." I will add that to my list of historic facts I have to confirm one of these days...in my spare time....