Accessible Artifacts

George Ellison works in a place that some people regard as Glendale’s attic.

When on duty in the Special Collections Room of the Central Library, he looks after items ranging from “branding irons from the Verdugos’ ranch to Bob’s Big Boy stuff to giant photos of a train arriving in Glendale during a snowfall in 1949.”

These artifacts mark the pioneering Verdugo family’s arrival almost 200 years ago until the Depression, when entrepreneur Robert Wian opened a hamburger stand that evolved into a restaurant chain and later got him elected mayor.

The snow scene is part of a collection of photos, other memorabilia and books on local history.

The climate-controlled Special Collections Room, recently relocated from a smaller space at the library, is open to visitors Saturday afternoons and by appointment. It’s a cool place to visit on a hot, smoggy summer day.

The collection is the closest Glendale comes to having a city museum.

You can find out what your relatives looked like when they were young if they graduated from Glendale High School and had their pictures taken for the school yearbook.

“I discovered that my grandmother’s nickname when she was in high school was ‘Jet,’ ” said Cindy Cleary, who supervises the collection.

“It was because she has jet-black hair, not anything to do with the engine, which hadn’t been invented at that time.”

She explained that the collection has grown thanks to the support of local people who have contributed books, photos and artifacts from their families, businesses, homes, schools, churches and professions, such as fire, police, aviation, rail and motion pictures.

“If you’re going through your attic and find things that touch on Glendale history, call us,” Cleary said.

And it works both ways, she said. For example, if people want to know the history of their old house, they can look at the collection’s Glendale City Directories going back to 1906.

Cleary likes to “go on the road,” as she puts it, giving local history talks, encouraging people to donate items to the collection and showing a video based on photos about local aviation.

“When Glendale Ruled the Skies,” produced by Thom Eberhardt, tells the story of Grand Central Air Terminal, built in 1920 between San Fernando Road and the Golden State Freeway, north of Highway 134.

Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart were based there, as was locally founded TWA, which used it to pioneer transcontinental passenger service.

Its motto was “New York in Only 48 Hours!” Library patrons can borrow the video for home viewing. The airport site is now occupied by motion picture-related companies.

The Special Collections Room contains information on the Kalem Co., a film company that relocated from Chicago in 1909, several years before the arrival of Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood.

Kalem and several other companies left town after a few years. As news clippings in the collection reveal, “Early residents failed to regard motion pictures as a business asset [and local] folks were not very warm toward movie actors.”

BE THERE

Special Collections Room, Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St., Glendale. Hours: Saturdays, 1:30-5:50 p.m., and by appointment. Call (818) 548-2027.