Images of Early Pomona by Mickey Gallivan (2007)

This is sort of a coffee table book in miniature and in paperback of what I - at least for now - consider my "home town." Pomona, for all its (somewhat deserved) piss poor reputation, is an old city with a rich history, and this little book proves it. The earliest settlers in Pomona were arrived in 1837 - and built a house (the Casa Primera) around the block from my current house. This is far older than my actual hometown in Kansas; it's almost (but not quite) "East Coast" old. Easterners and Midwesterners forget that history was happening often simultaneously out west.

The book wasn't chock full of gems - there are quite a few pictures of people I don't know in old clothes. But there were several interesting tidbits. The pictures of Ganesha Park were interesting; the fact that Garey, White and Holt Avenues were all named after founding fathers of Pomona was another interesting fact. The Padre Oak at 459 Kenoak Place was "believed to have been the stoppiogn place of the mission fathers when they traveled through in 1832. It was under this tree that the first Christian religious service in the Pomona Valley was held. Tomas Palomares" - another street name - "built his adobe home on this site just north of the oak tree." I could almost spit on this tree if it wasn't for the 10 Freeway; I've probably walked by or under it and didn't even realize it was there.