STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
The east side of El Centro had a spectacular and self-propelled fire last night.
It started at about 11:30 when Austin Burns, 62, of El Centro, looked out of his window and saw his truck and trailer loaded with hay — starting to burn.
He told police that he also saw three youths running away.
Burns first tried to put out the fire with his garden hose. That did not work, so he called firemen. They rushed to the scene, but by this time the truck and trailer were burning fiercely.
A firemen suggested to Burns that he get in his truck and drive it to a neighboring vacant lot where the fire would not endanger nearby homes. Burns got in and roared off down the street, barely missed two police cars, showering them with burning hay, and then roared off “well in excess of 40 m.p.h.,” according to officers. Burns careened around the block, dropping blazing hay bales on the street.
40 years ago
An environmental lawsuit filed in challenge of existing salinity control legislation on the Colorado River could have tremendous impact on Southwestern agricultural production according to an official of the Imperial Irrigation District.
The suit, filed in Washington, D.C., by attorneys for the 44,500-member Environmental Defense Fund, contends a federally approved plan to return the river to its 1972 salinity levels “will not effectively control salinity, at best beyond 1990.”
Date the suit was filed was not immediately known, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
The federal plan was ordered because new development along the river’s 242,000-square-mile rivershedriver shed has reportedly triggered increasing salinity, the Times said.
Worst effects of the salinity are being felt by residents of the seven Western states who draw their water supplies from the 1,400-mile river. The states are Colorado Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California.
Salinity pollution now costs an estimated $53 million a year and areis expected to soar to $125 million by the end of the century.
30 years ago
IMPERIAL — Imperial High School will host a three-team football scrimmage Friday, Sept. 4 for the Valley teams in the Desert-Mountain League.
Coaches from Imperial, Holtville and Calipatria high schools met Friday and agreed to the plan. Each team will play two quarters of football, facing each opponent once.
The three-way scrimmage fills a void opened when similar carnival for six teams at Mountain Empire High School last summer was not repeated this year. Valley coaches last season praised the idea of the carnival and hoped the idea would be repeated. It was not repeated by the Pine Valley school.
Unlike the carnival last year, the Calipatria, Holtville and Imperial High School Football Carnival will also feature the junior varsity teams from each school. The junior varsity squads will play in the same order the varsity squads play, alternating appearances.
20 years ago
HOLTVILLE — The grand opening of Del Sol Market today was a grand event for many in Holtville.
The recently opened grocery store is in the same location at 402 E. Fifth St. as the former Valley Market. They had been without a full-service grocery store since Valley Market closed its doors Jan. 26.
Eldred Burk, former manager of Valley Market in Holtville, said the people of Holtville were really “put over a hard rock when we pulled out.”
Burk said market owner Gary Cook ran into financial problems because of the Imperial Valley’s economy and had no choice but to close the Valley markets Markets in Holtville and Imperial and Cook’s markets Markets in other cities throughout the Valley.