STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Fighting Sacramento paid off yesterday for the DuBois family as judgment was received for the DuBois Ranch against the State of California.
The action climaxed a 10-day “condemnation case” before Judge George R. Kirk in which the state sought 16 acres of the DuBois Ranch, needed for the Interstate 8 freeway.
Defendants were William, Mary Ellen, Ruth R., Isabelle O. and John L. DuBois, doing business as DuBois Ranch.
The state originally offered $28,742 for the 16 acres needed east of Forrester Road and south of Ross Avenue. In court, attorney Sherman E. Hollingsworth, for the state, raised this offer to $47,500.
Friday, after deliberating nearly 24 hours (less time out to go home and sleep), the jury awarded the DuBois family a total of $71,500 plus costs. The award was $21,500 for the land taken and $50,000 for severance damages, which include the cost of relocating irrigation lines and re-leveling fields.
40 years ago
Winning 18 straight regular-season games, the Arabs from Coachella High School will be in the Valley on Friday night for an exhibition football game at Imperial High School.
Two league champions clash in Tiger Stadium. Imperial won the Chaparral League title in 1976. Coachella accomplishing the same feat in the Desert Valleys League.
This is a bounce-back week for Steve Evangelist and his Tigers. They visited Rim of The World last weekend and saw a two-game exhibition win streak end 34-14.
Imperial has picked a tough foe to regain lost momentum against. Coachella invades the Valley after chopping past three exhibition opponents for coach Mike McBride.
30 years ago
The church on Eighth Street in El Centro with the four-pointed roof, which has been likened to a ship in the desert in full sail, is about to celebrate a milestone.
The United Methodist Church of El Cento was formally established in 1907 by just 19 believers, but those have been multiplied many times through the years and through several relocations as the organization prepares to celebrate its 80th anniversary. Membership currently exceeds 300, with a constituency perhaps double that, a full calendar of activities, and a busy program of individual, group and public services.
In 1907, the battle of the pioneers against the Colorado River had been won, but only after the river had overflowed its boundaries and threatened to destroy farms and fields the pioneers had laboriously wrested from the thirsty, alien desert soil.
Pioneers, who had fought against the flooding with the help of the Southern Pacific Railroad, could now turn their attention to the future. Although there had been a Methodist minister in Imperial Valley and a church in the city of Imperial, no Methodist congregation had yet been formed in El Centro. The small group of believers set out to establish their church in the city which was about to become the county seat.