Past Tense: September 12, 2019
70 years ago – 1949
Dorothy Lewis was back from a visit to Bamako, Republic of Mali, Africa, where her son was serving in the Peace Corps.
65 years ago – 1954
A power blackout over the holiday weekend lasted from 1:35 p.m. Saturday to 12:05 a.m. Sunday. Gasoline pumps wouldn’t work and the Rustic Theatre had to declare a holiday.
60 years ago – 1959
To help hill folk become accustomed to “the high-powered new car” of Deputy Sheriff Brady Barker, the Town Crier published a photograph of Barker with his 1959 Plymouth with lights and a siren.
55 years ago – 1964
The Chamber of Commerce recommended forming a recreation district to take over management of Town Hall and establish a youth center on the property.
50 years ago - 1969
Five high school students from Pine Cove were injured the first day of school when the car they were riding in hit a rock on the highway near Cranston Station.
45 years ago - 1974
The Silent Valley Club in Poppet Flats opened its gates to its first members.40 years ago – 1979
It was back to school for mountain-area students, but most of the teachers were out on strike as part of a district-wide teachers’ strike. Classes were being taught by substitute teachers on a minimum-day basis and students were asked to bring sack lunches.
35 years ago – 1984
Several hundred people viewed the “40 Years of Maxwell” exhibit of Ernie Maxwell’s drawings, cartoons, paintings and sculptures at the ISOMATA (now Idyllwild Arts Academy) Village Gallery.
30 years ago – 1989
In celebration of the first 25 years of the Wilderness Act, members of the Izaak Walton League and the Idyllwild Mountain Rescue Unit joined forces at the U.S. Forest Service office to answer questions from more than 200 people about the national and local forests.
25 years ago – 1994
Camp Emerson celebrated 75 years with a party attended by more than 300 people including Dr. Alfred Fulmor, who first attended the camp as a Boy Scout in 1919.
20 years ago – 1999
Mountain Community Patrol was seeking volunteers with foreign language expertise to help non-English-speaking tourists.
15 years ago – 2004
As a result of devastation caused by bark beetles, Southern California Edison reported that it had removed 12,000 trees in the Idyllwild-area mountains in less than a year.
10 years ago – 2009
The hill would soon see the benefits of a $650,000 U.S. Forest Service grant to the Mountain Communities Fire Safe Council for fuel-reduction projects.
5 years ago – 2014
The Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved a $15,000 agreement to provide assistance to low-income victims of the 2013 Mountain Fire.
1 year ago – 2018
Steven Taylor Rutherford, 49, of Banning, pleaded guilty to 10 felony counts of arson and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Several of the fires were along Highway 243 in the Poppet Flats and Mt. Edna areas.
