Roundup: December 14, 2016

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speakers: Alan and Claudia Heller
Their Subject: Curiosities of the California Desert: Historic, Offbeat, and Forgotten Attractions

This month’s presentation takes us to the California desert, one of the most misunderstood areas of the Golden State.  To many city-dwellers, the desert is merely a vast, sandy, wasteland punctuated only by rattlesnakes. But all experienced desert rats know otherwise, and the Heller’s talk will be a revelation to those less-traveled. Salvation Mountain, Cerro Gordo, the Integratron and Giant Rock, Willie Boy’s Grave and Devils Hole (with its playful pupfish) are just a few of the unique locations in the California desert the Hellers will guide us to during their program.  For more than 50 years, our speakers have explored and photographed these and hundreds of other localities throughout the length and breadth of California’s spectacular deserts.

Alan and Claudia Heller are Southern California natives, and members of the Los Angeles Corral. Alan was educated at CSULA, Claudia at LACC. They can boast more than a century of joint travel and exploration throughout our state’s deserts. Alan is past president of Duarte’s Public Access Channel, a former commissioner of Duarte Parks and Recreation, Duarte Planning, and Duarte Community Service. His photographs have appeared in Westways, Skin Diver Magazine, Route 66 Magazine and many other publications and newspapers. Claudia has been the president of the Duarte Historical Society and Museum for the past twenty years. She writes articles for Route 66 Magazine, a column for the Pasadena Star News, and is a regular contributor to The View, for the Duarte Chamber of Commerce. Singly or together the Hellers have authored Life on Route 66: Personal Accounts Along the Mother Road to California; Duarte Chronicles;  and Curiosities of the California Desert. 

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: November 9, 2016

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Dr. Matthew A. Boxt
His Subject: The U.S. Naval Presence in Baja California, 1846-1909

This month’s presentation reviews the poorly remembered U.S. Navy’s presence in “the other” California during two historic episodes.  The Pacific Coast Campaign of the Mexican War (1846-1848) secured the Baja California Peninsula, which was subsequently returned to Mexico. Sixty years later, President Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, (1907-1909) put in at Magdalena Bay, Baja California, before moving on to San Francisco, and then across the Pacific.  Research for Dr. Boxt’s lecture incorporates online sources such as manuscripts, photographs, navigation logs, maps, postcards, and newspapers. Some of these materials are available for study at specific web sites, while others can only be accessed through purchase at electronic trading forums. Matthew will venture beyond the chronological and geographical dimensions of his subject in discussing how buying (or not buying) documentary material on the Internet may be changing the way we think about, and do, historical research.   

Matthew A. Boxt received a BA in Anthropology from UC Berkeley (1976) and his MA (1979) and Ph.D. (1993) from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.  Boxt is a Fulbright Fellow (1986) and has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork in Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, and California over the past forty years. Dr. Boxt has published numerous articles, monographs, and books on California and Mesoamerican archaeology.  In recent years he has served as a Guest Editor for the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly, contributing original research articles about Alta and Baja California.  

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff

70th Anniversary Store

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70th Anniversary Celebration: October 22, 2016

University Club of Pasadena
175 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena,  CA

Social Hour: 11:00 AM
Music Entertainment and Luncheon Follows
Festivities Conclude: 2:00 PM

Our Speaker: Elizabeth Pomeroy
Her Subject: The Illustrious Glen Dawson, His Bookstore and Press

Glen Dawson: was a Founding Member of the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners seventy years ago in 1946 and served as our Sheriff in 1959. Dawson was a mountaineer, soldier, scholar, bookman, and publisher.  He was a family man, a church archivist and a loyal comrade to book-lovers not just amongst Westerners International, but a legendary and revered figure to all California historians.  A recent tribute declared “What a legacy!  To accomplish half as much would fill a life for most people.” Elizabeth Pomeroy’s presentation on this outstanding Los Angeles corral paragon is a fond retrospective of his life and accomplishments.  Highlights of Glen’s many activities and quotes from his own speaking and writing will shed light on his wonderfully productive, diverse, and very long life of 103 years.  As our Corral celebrates its 70th Anniversary, it is entirely appropriate that we honor the memory of one of our most illustrious founding fathers.

Elizabeth Pomeroy: is a California native, with a remarkable array of advanced degrees from the finest universities of our land.  Her Ph.D., in English, is from UCLA, her M.A. in English is from U.C. Berkeley, her M.A.T. (in the Teaching of English) is from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her B.A., also in English, is from Stanford University.  Dr. Pomeroy taught English in high schools and at Pasadena City College. She served on the Huntington Library staff for ten years, and is currently a School Board member of the Pasadena Unified School District.  Her publications include literary studies and books on Southern California history and natural history.  Among them are Lost and Found, Lost and Found II, John Muir: A Naturalist in Southern California, and Pasadena: A Natural History.  Her most recent book is San Marino: A Centennial History, which received regional, state, and national awards for local history writing. In the year 2000 Elizabeth established Many Moons Press, which publishes works on California history and nature, including new editions of classics long out-of-print. She is a frequent speaker on becoming a grassroots historian.  Her present writing project is a biography of Glen Dawson.

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: September 14, 2016

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Phil Brigandi
His Subject: A Five-Foot Shelf of Westerners: Prominent Historians of the Los Angeles Corral

Prominent Historians of the Los Angeles Corral: Since its founding in 1946, the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners International has counted many of Southern California’s most prominent historians amongst its members. From Robert Glass Cleland and W.W. Robinson to Doyce Nunis and Francis Weber, scores of well-known authors, archaeologists, archivists, and academics have all been a part of our corral. For our September meeting, Phil Brigandi will discuss some of the men and women who are part of the rich history of our corral, their work, and their writings. “You probably already have some of their books on your shelf,” he says, “but if not, you had better get busy!”  The title of his talk refers to how wide just a small sampling of books from our illustrious roster of authors might be in a room-width bookcase.  And some of the titles incorporated by such a “five-foot shelf” would be works by prominent present members of our corral, Phil himself included.

Phil Brigandi has been researching and writing local history for more than 40 years, specializing in the history of Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties. He is the author of more than two dozen books and hundreds of articles, including histories of Orange, Temecula, and Borrego Springs. He is the former historian for the Ramona Pageant and former archivist for the County of Orange. He has been a member of The Westerners since 2001, and served as our Branding Iron editor from 2008 to 2010.  His most recent publications include scholarly works on Helen Hunt Jackson.  Phil is presently co-writing a history of Indian Agents in Southern California with Valerie Sherer Mathes.

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff