SPECIAL OUTING: An Exclusive Guided Tour of Mount Wilson Observatory

Click here to see a write up and photos of this event.

SPECIAL OUTING

An Exclusive Guided Tour of Mount Wilson Observatory with Dave Jurasevich, Deputy Operations Manager

Saturday, August 17, 2013, 12:00 AM–3:00PM

The historic Mount Wilson Observatory is the birthplace of modern astronomy, with a breadth of fundamental discoveries ranging from solar research and stellar evolution to the very origins of the Universe itself that are unsurpassed at any other scientific facility on Earth.  Come walk in the footsteps of the great astronomers of the 20^th Century who worked at Mount Wilson and used what were then the largest telescopes in the world to unlock the fundamental secrets of the Universe.

Westerner attendees & their guests will:

… see where Edwin Hubble made his great cosmological discoveries,

… inspect in detail the 100” telescope, the instrument that discovered the expansion of the universe, … tour the 60” telescope and learn of its greatest discovery, locating our place in the Milky Way,

… visit the Monastery where the distinguished astronomers lived, ate, and worked,

… see George Ellery Hale’s private library collection and the study where Einstein lectured,

… witness how Mount Wilson solar astronomers study our Sun and unravel its many secrets

… tour the CHARA Array as it sharpens Mt. Wilson’s leading edge in astronomical research.

Click here to see a write up and photos of this event.

Roundup: August 14, 2013

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

Speaker: Dave Jurasevich
Subject: “Mount Wilson Observatory – Past, Present and Future”

Click here to view photos from the event.

As the world’s preeminent Observatory during the first half of the Twentieth Century, Mount Wilson holds a unique place in the history of scientific endeavor.  It was here that the great astronomer, Edwin Hubble, established the cornerstones of modern cosmology by unlocking the secrets of an expanding Universe, paving the way for our understanding of the Big Bang and ultimate fate of the Cosmos. Fueling the economic engine of scientific enterprise in Southern California, the Mount Wilson Observatory and its founder, George Ellery Hale, were the motivating forces that transformed the San Gabriel Valley into a major center of technological achievement, spawning institutions such as the California Institute of Technology, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a host of other science-based organizations found here today.  Mr. Jurasevich takes the audience on a journey back in time, reliving the storied history of this great American institution. Walk in the footsteps of the finest astronomers of their age, learn how they deciphered the code of the Heavens, and marvel in their discoveries. These concepts put us firmly in our place in the Universe and forever changed our view of the world in which we live.

Dave Jurasevich is the Deputy Director of Operations for the Mount Wilson Observatory.  He graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 1972 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. As an avid amateur astrophotographer, Mr. Jurasevich’s work has been published worldwide in astronomical journals and periodicals as well as being featured on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website.  He has appeared in various PBS documentaries, including productions by the BBC London, French, German and Swedish Public Television Corporations, as well as a PBS-KCET Huell Howser California’s Gold Special featuring the Mount Wilson Observatory. Be sure to attend a special tour of the historic observatory conducted by Mr. Jurasevich on the Saturday following the meeting. This tour is for Westerners and their guests only and builds on the history outlined in this dynamic presentation. Please see event flyer included for details.

Larry L. Boerio
Deputy Sheriff

Click here to view photos from the event.

SPECIAL OUTING: A Historic Trip Abroad a 1949 Railway Lounge Car – Los Angeles to Santa Barbara

Click here to see a write up and photos of this event.

SPECIAL OUTING

A Historic Trip Aboard a 1949 Railway Car – Los Angeles to Santa Barbara

July 13, 2013

Trip will include: Historic narration by car’s owner and other railroad historians covering the history of the car, the famous name trains it served, the history of the Coast Route upon which you will travel to Santa Barbara, plus customized food and drink service on-board in both directions.  Upon arrival in Santa Barbara, you will be escorted by an experienced guide on a tour of the local wine tasting rooms or feel free to do your own tour of this beautiful city.  Upon our return enjoy the sunset over the Pacific as you have dinner served to you in the style and comfort of a by-gone era!

Click here to see a write up and photos of this event.

Roundup: July 10, 2013

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

Speaker: Gabriel Gutiérrez, Ph.D.
Subject: “California Indians on Rancho Azusa: Labor, Consumption, and Historical Agency.”

Gabriel Gutiérrez is this year’s recipient of our Autry Fellowship Award. His presentation this evening will explore the processes and consequences of the “repressive inclusion” of Southern California Indians from the last stages of the Spanish colonial period to the onset of United States industrialization. He will examine the function of Indio vaqueros and conscription of Southern California Indians into the Spanish military as auxiliary troops. Particular attention will also be paid to the emergence of labor contracting and consumerism among Southern California Indians at Henry Dalton’s Rancho Azusa, as well as to an assessment of the rise of criminalization of Southern California Indian cultural practices and behavior.

Dr. Gutiérrez was born and raised in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, California. He is the son of long time community activists Juana Beatriz and Ricardo Gutiérrez and holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Currently, he holds the positions of Director, Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas (CESPA) and Professor, Department of Chicano/a Studies at California State University, Northridge. In addition, he produced and hosted the weekly radio show, “The Morning Review with Gabriel Gutiérrez” on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles for six years.

He has published in the fields of California history, Chicano/a history, environmental racism, critical media studies and media literacy. Currently, he is completing “Latinos and Latinas: Risk and Opportunities” (Forthcoming, Greenwood Publishers, 2014). He is also in the final stages of the manuscript, “Bell Towers, Crucifixes and Cañones Violentos: State and Identity Formation in Pre-Industrial California.”

Larry L. Boerio
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: May 8, 2013

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

Speaker: Joseph Feeney
Subject: “The Second Gold Rush”

The history of Southern California cannot be fully understood without referencing the Citrus industry and the monumental impact it had on this area. In his presentation, Joe will cover the citrus industry from the first groves at the San Gabriel mission to the development of a multibillion-dollar agricultural empire. The history of this transition is not dull to say the least. The first railroad car of oranges left California in 1877, within thirty years there were over 100,000 acres of oranges planted in California, most in Southern California. Joe’s talk will cover the economic and agricultural development of the industry: including, dollar volume, grove size, cost per acre, development of growers co-ops, transportation development and cost, and the reasons for the dominance of the navel orange. All this will be accompanied by pictures of the facilities, groves, and people who are the focus of the talk. Joe will also follow an orange from the tree to the market place to help the audience integrate all the facts and figures into a comprehensive picture. Joe will address the marketing aspects of the industry using the crate label as the focal point. The presentation features many slides of labels from Southern California.

Joseph Feeney is a native of Southern California with a life-long love for Southern California history. Joe has always understood that history is made by people first, and that the historical facts are the result of human actions. He has served as a board member of the Campo de Cahuenga for twenty years, a Huntington Westerner for twenty-five years, and was vice-president of the civil War Roundtable of Baton Rouge while he attended LSU to earn his Masters degree in Political Science in 2003. Joe has been a collector of citrus labels for over thirty years. His collecting interest grew into a desire to understand the industry that fashioned the need for the creation of over a billion labels.

Roundup: April 10, 2013

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

Speaker: Steve Lech
Subject: “ The Formation of Riverside County”

Riverside County is the fourth largest county in California, and one of the last ones to be created. Stretching from Orange County to the Arizona border, Riverside County took most of its territory from San Diego County and the rest from San Bernardino County. As is true of much local history, what was understood to be the reasons behind Riverside County’s formation had been copied and recopied from one source, most of which was not true. Long thought to be the outcome of dissatisfaction over the construction of a new courthouse in San Bernardino, the reasons behind Riverside County’s beginnings were numerous. Steve Lech spent more than 4 years researching the development of Riverside County, resulting in the book “Along the Old Roads.” In his presentation, Mr. Lech uncovers many of the reasons, and the back-room dealings, that brought about the formation of California’s fourth largest county in 1893.

Steve Lech is a native Riversider and fellow Westerner as well as our new Branding Iron editor. He has been interested in the local history of Riverside County for more than 35 years and has written eight books on various subjects of Riverside County history, including Along the Old Roads – A History of the Portion of Southern California That Became Riverside County, 1772-1893, considered to be the definitive history of Riverside County. He co-authors the weekly “Back in the Day” column for the Press-Enterprise newspaper in which he explores many aspects of local history throughout western Riverside County. He has been a docent at the historic Mission Inn hotel for more than 23 years, and is currently the president of the Riverside Historical Society.

Larry L. Boerio
Deputy Sheriff 

December 2012 Roundup Photos

Please enjoy this collection of images from the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners’ December 2012 Roundup.

All images courtesy Steve Crise.

Roundup: March 13, 2013

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

Speaker: Glen Creason
Subject: “As the City Grew”

Glen Creason has been the map librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library for the past 23 years and a reference librarian in the History department since 1979. Here is more on his biography:

He was a co-curator of the landmark map exhibit “Los Angeles Unfolded” in 2008 and 2009 and in October of 2010 he published the book “Los Angeles in Maps” for Rizzolli International. He has written about local history, maps, and popular culture for local publications including the Downtown News, Mercators World, the Public Historian, the Communicator the Los Angeles Times, and one tasty article for Edible Ojai. He has been a regular writer on entertainment and food for the Los Cerritos Community News for nineteen years and currently blogs on maps for Los Angeles Magazine. He is a native Angelino, born and raised in South Gate and now living in Glassell Park.

The program “As the City Grew” is a selection of maps that demonstrate the growth and identity of Los Angeles from the founding of the pueblo to the metropolis of today. Included are the Ord Survey, the first surveyed map of Los Angeles, a signed copy of the Kirkman-Harriman maps showing Indian villages, the first topographic map of the area, a 1903 automobile road map by Thurston, one of the few copies existing of Laura Whitlock’s depiction of the Pacific Electric streetcar lines and the dazzling Jo Mora pictorial map from 1942.

Glen will also comment on the greatest map gift ever made to the Los Angeles Public Library. The John Feather’s collection was in a private home in Mount Washington destined for a demolition until realtor Matthew Greenberg contacted Glen setting in motion an adventure that ended in over one hundred thousand maps being added to the library’s collection. The Feather’s map house story has been featured in national newspapers, NBC television, NPR’s Morning Edition, and on Dick Gordon’s “the Story” on American Public Media.

Larry L. Boerio
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: February 12, 2013

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

Speaker: Michele Zack
Subject: “Southern-minded Southern California”

Fellow Westerner, Michele Zack has given us two talks in the past five years and is familiar with many of us.  Michele is an award-winning writer/journalist with 25+ years experience as a foreign correspondent and a renowned local historian since her return to the States some years ago.  Recent of her book publications have been recognized for “excellence” by the American Association of State and Local History, and have won the Donald Pflueger Award for local history.  In 2012, she was named Altadena Citizen of the Year for her activism on the Town Council and her work with Altadena Heritage over the years.

At this meeting, she will discuss California’s legacy of slavery, a couple of 19th Century Civil Rights leaders, and the role of the stat win the run up to the Civil War.  She will focus mainly on Southern California, but also provide some often-missing context to explain why California is generally left out of Civil War history even though the state was an important cause of the war.  That our state’s Congressional representatives regularly voted with slave states through the tumultuous 1850s is seldom noted.

Michele’s role at the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West for many years has been to connect the dots from local to national history.  Her investigations of the San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles history have led her current research/book project on Los Angeles and the Civil War.  This talk will share her understanding of California’s importance in our country’s most traumatic conflict, and why it is not well understood of included in most narratives of the war.

Larry L. Boerio
Deputy Sheriff 

Roundup: January 9, 2013

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

Speakers: Dr. Elizabeth Pomeroy & Nick Curry

Los Angeles Westerners will have two of its own members speak in a dual presentation on the history of the city of San Marino, home of the Huntington Library. Dr. Elizabeth Pomeroy will be pursuing some theories about what makes San Marino the city that it is, tracing the arc of history starting with the land and its promises.  From the rare topography to the arrival of Henry Huntington and the aura of his estate, this small city has followed a singular path — and managed its own identity along the way.  A handful of vignettes will bring out some special characters in the story.
Nick Curry will add further anecdotes and connections, linking San Marino characters to the wider Southern California picture. Nick is a historical researcher and compiler and a long time member of Westerners.

Both Elizabeth and Nick are long time Southern California residents. Elizabeth recently published the book “San Marino, A Centennial 1913-2013” and Nick helped extensively with its research. Elizabeth additionally has published other material about the San Gabriel Valley including columns in local newspapers.

Joe Cavallo
Deputy Sheriff

November 2012 Roundup “Hat Night” Photo Gallery

The Westerners Los Angeles Corral November 2012 Roundup, held, Wednesday, November 14, 2012, included “Hat Night,” and here is a collection of images taken by Steve Crise to document the event’s attendees.

2012 – Rendezvous

2011 – Fandango

The Fandango is the festive annual gathering held by the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners to celebrate our western heritage and have a great time in each other’s company.

It’s one of the many great benefits of membership in the Los Angeles Corral, as these images by Steve Crise attest.

Many thanks to Gary and Vicky Turner for opening their home to host this wonderful event.