History and Historic Sites of the Valley * Then and Now Photos * Lost Crescenta * Rockhaven * Membership and Donations
In 1928 the Bausback family, then living on the east coast, had a serious problem. Their 6-year-old son Charles had debilitating asthma worsened by the damp climate. Charles Bausback's father, searching for a way to ease his son's suffering, read a bulletin from the U.S. Health Department that declared the most healthful climate in the country for asthma sufferers was in La Crescenta, California. So the family sold their home and packed their belongings into a car and embarked on a 3-month odyssey across America. The only paved roads then were in the cities, and the long stretches of dirt and mud between were not much different than the 49ers had experienced in their covered wagons. The family had to ferry their auto across rivers, and experienced wild-west style shoot-outs, to finally end their journey in the sagebrush that was La Crescenta. Young Charles witnessed it all, and 80 years later can tell the story as though it happened yesterday. You are invited to hear an evening of tales of the early highways of America, and a first-hand memory of what La Crescenta was like in 1928.