70 years ago - 1948

Pat Rizzo on sax and Marshall Hawkins on bass at the first Jazz in the Pines concert in 1994. file photo

More than 100 people attended the town’s Old Time Dance.

65 years ago - 1953

An electrical storm roared through the night, starting eight fires and depositing 0.84 inches of rain that raised Strawberry Creek 2 feet.

60 years ago - 1958

Max and Bee Krone were collaborators on “The Together We Sing” book, just off the press.

55 years ago - 1963

Jackson Lemon of Long Beach, a retired contractor, was an Idyllwild visitor. Years before, he was the builder of the local Community Presbyterian Church.

50 years ago - 1968

The county’s Advisory Traffic Committee turned down a request by the Idyllwild Chamber of Commerce for angle parking at the Post Office and Town Hall.

45 years ago - 1973

The fire chief’s son, David Hunt, 14, got a ride to Hemet Valley Hospital in the fire department’s rescue vehicle after falling from his bicycle and breaking his shoulder.

40 years ago - 1978

The Town Crier had two foreign correspondents. Luther Weare was writing from northern Europe and Ernie Maxwell was sending reports from the Yukon.

35 years ago - 1983

Idyllwild Arts Foundation was to take over operating the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts campus. Patricia Clark was to be the director.

30 years ago - 1988

Mike Bergstrom, a 17-year-old Idyllwild resident, spent a week as a citizen of Boys State on the California State University campus.

25 years ago - 1993

Target shooting was blamed for the 475-acre fire that started just north of the Cranston Fire Station at the upper end of Bee Canyon Road.

20 years ago - 1998

Workers repairing the ventilation system at Idyllwild School made a surprising discovery. In the crawl space below the roof were dozens of military cots, circa 1955, apparently stored for emergency situations and long forgotten.

15 years ago - 2003

Community activists cheered when Pine Cove resident Paul Black, who had been illegally selling water off his property, had his water tanks removed.

10 years ago - 2008

“Idyllwild’s pine forest could convert to chaparral,” said Anne Kelly, a University of California, Irvine researcher who, along with  UCI researcher Michael Goulden, studied how climate change was affecting the area mountains with plant species moving toward higher elevations.

5 years ago - 2013

The Silver Fire began near Poppet Flats Road, growing to more than 20,000 acres, destroying 26 structures and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents from Poppet Flats to Twin Pines and then portions of desert communites from Banning to Snow Creek.

1 year ago - 2017

A total solar eclipse passed across the continental United States and though total eclipses are not rare, one passing across the U.S. is not common. The last opportunity was in 1979.