The founding of Pacific Palisades.
Photo: PALISADES HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The birthplace of Pacific Palisades is located at Founders Oak Island on Haverford Avenue. The Founders met there on January 18, 1922 to dedicate the town. The Pacific Palisades Historical Society will over a rededication at 2 p.m. at that location in the median of the 900 block of Haverford Avenue, across from the historic Aldersgate Lodge.
The Society in its newsletter “The last few days, we’ve all been preoccupied with painful memories as we—of necessity—marked the first anniversary of our community’s near-complete destruction. Now let’s take a little time to find inspiration and renewal in the enduring spirit of the founders, by gathering at the place where our town began more than a century ago.”
Speakers will include traditional storyteller Alan Salazar, who will remind us that this region’s history with Indigenous peoples dates back way, way before Spanish explorers or Methodist Ministers settled on the land that would become Pacific Palisades.
Methodists in search of a Chautauqua site formed the original Pacific Palisades Association. It invited would-be pioneers to meet at the edge of Temescal Canyon to choose their homesites, a scene captured in the famous photograph of what is remembered as the town’s “founding.”
A portion of where this took place is preserved as Founders Oak Island, a designated historic landmark.
Also speaking is Reverend Catie Coots, interim pastor of the Palisades Methodist congregation, which lost its nearly century-old church to the wildfire. Coots will reveal that the congregation found historic and remarkably well-preserved documents when they opened the 1929 time capsule recovered from the fire wreckage.
The society writes, “Above all, Sunday will be a low-key opportunity to meet with friends and reflect on the legacies of our past, and the challenges of our future.
“We hope to see you there. After all, we do have history together.”
To learn more, to support the historical society or to become a member click here.