Mike Lawler

Explore the heroic efforts of the Montrose Search and Rescue team, rescuing victims from the treacherous Angeles National Forest for over seventy years. Los Angeles is one of the biggest cities in the world, but is incongruously a ten-minute drive from a vast impenetrable mountain wilderness, the Angeles National Forest. This 700,000-acre forest includes the San Gabriel Mountains, which are among the most treacherous and steep mountain ranges in the world. Every year, thousands of people get lost or injured hiking or skiing, get trapped in the abandoned mines that honeycomb the remote canyons, or drive their cars or motorcycles off the precipitous mountain roads that snake along cliff faces. Since 1947, a dedicated group of volunteers from the Crescenta Valley has been rescuing these hapless victims. The Montrose Search and Rescue team is one of the oldest SAR groups in the nation, and among the most professional, despite receiving no pay for risking their lives. They perform search and rescue feats high on peaks, down in canyons, deep underground, in the snow and ice, and from the air. They have been called to travel nationwide to assist other SAR teams with less expertise. In their seventy years of service they have racked up thousands of thrilling rescues. Most of the stories are uplifting, but some will break your heart. These men are modern-day heroes, and they live right here in our community.

The Crescenta Valley is a typical suburb of the metropolis of Los Angeles, containing residential neighborhoods nestled in chaparral-covered hills. But hidden in these typical neighborhoods are remnants of an atypical past, a past made up of Hollywood legends, Prohibition-era bootleggers, and pioneers in women's rights. Crescenta Valley History: Hidden in Plain Sight tells the stories behind six places in the community that residents pass by every day, with no idea of the amazing events that took place there--six innocuous locations with impressive histories. A little shack behind an apartment that was once the home of John Steinbeck; the overgrown ruins of a former speakeasy; an abandoned sanitarium that once housed aging Hollywood stars, and now houses their ghosts; a mystical religious sanctuary run entirely by women; a former resort and Olympic training site buried deep under a suburban shopping mall; and a park created by professional baseball players and movie stars. All these sites are right here in your neighborhood You'll never look at the Crescenta Valley the same way again.

From illegal gambling and prostitution to claims of alien abduction, Crescenta Valley has seen it all. Once home to thriving moonshine operations and shocking Nazi rallies, the valley's past is riddled with scandalous tales that many would prefer to forget. Yet not all of Crescenta Valley's tawdry history could remain forgotten or hidden in its day. The infamous C. C. Julian oil scandal made national headlines. Even today, recent information reveals a local internment camp for Japanese and Germans that opened the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Join Gary Keyes and Mike Lawler, authors of Murder & Mayhem in the Crescenta Valley," as they reveal the seamy underbelly that belies the valley's beautifully pleasant exterior."

The pleasant neighborhoods of the Crescenta Valley offer no hint of the many violent and heinous crimes that have occurred between the San Gabriel and Verdugo Mountains. But ties to such macabre episodes as the Onion Field murder and the search for the Hi

The pleasant neighborhoods of the Crescenta Valley offer no hint of the many violent and heinous crimes that have occurred between the San Gabriel and Verdugo Mountains. But ties to such macabre episodes as the Onion Field murder and the search for the Hillside Strangler left lasting scars here. Infamous criminals such as mafia boss Joe "Iron Man" Ardizzone, red-light bandit Caryl Chessman and accused yacht bomber Beulah Overell have left a black eye on La Cresecenta's history--not to mention the "Rattlesnake Murder," "Female Bluebeard" and "Santa Claus Killer." Join historians Gary Keyes and Mike Lawler as they expose the crimes and criminals that have inflicted murder and mayhem in Glendale, La Crescenta, Montrose and La Canada Flintridge.