Past Tense: June 25, 2015
65 years ago – 1950
Cliff Campbell was running trail rides into the back country from his corrals at the Idyllwild Dairy.
60 years ago – 1955
Representatives of major conservation organizations met at Bowman Arts Center for the third-annual conservation conference.
55 years ago – 1960
General building contractor William J. Burke advertised a more than 2,000-square-foot home selling for $13,500. The house would include four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a garage.
50 years ago – 1965
One of America’s great singing groups, Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers and Dancers, participated in the Summers in the Folk Music Workshop at the University of Southern California’s Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts.
45 years ago – 1970
Dr. Max Krone, founder of the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, died at his home in Laguna Hills. He started the ISOMATA program 20 years previously.
40 years ago – 1975
Two Idyllwild houses were damaged due to fire. One family returned to their home on Idyllmont Road, to find the house burned almost flat. The other home, on Country Club Drive, received damage to a door and some wall surfaces.
35 years ago – 1980
Volunteer bus driver Ron Colgate became the new director of the Mt. San Jacinto Senior Center.
30 years ago – 1985
A nearly $400,000 suspected arson fire burned a 4,000-square-foot Quonset hut at the U.S. Forest Service Keenwild Guard Station near Mountain Center. The blaze destroyed the building’s entire contents, but there was only one minor injury to a firefighter.
25 years ago – 1990
Owner of Hoffman Realty for 12 years, Suzy Hoffman sold the realty to Roy Harris who had been associated with the firm for four years.
20 years ago – 1995
Snow fell on the last day of school. The snow melted as it hit the ground in Idyllwild, but Pine Cove got 2 inches on the ground.
15 years ago – 2000
Despite 867 signatures on a petition, Idyllwild Charter High School failed to get critical support from the Hemet Unified School District Board of Trustees and was forced to close its doors.
10 years ago – 2005
Twenty-two Elvis Presley fans descended on Idyllwild to pay homage to the location of the 1961 film “Kid Galahad.” The fans presented an original poster for the movie to the Idyllwild Area Historical Society.
5 years ago – 2010
Idyllwild Water District directors approved a 6-percent rate increase for each of the next five years.
1 year ago – 2014
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit to force the federal government to determine whether each of nine species was endangered. Among the nine was the San Bernardino flying squirrel, a native to the local Southern Californian mountains.
