Education
7
In 1984, a diseased Red Oak standing in front of La Verne Heights Elementary School began dropping limbs onto Baseline Road, creating danger for drivers and students, so the City of La Verne had it removed and taken to the city maintenance yard. A city employee then suggested using the fallen tree in a city project, and woodworker and artist Ruben Guajardo was chosen to turn it into the front doors of the newly built city library. From 1984 to 1987, Guajardo milled and cured the wood before fashioning the doors, which were then installed at the La Verne Public Library, where they remain. The remaining cross section from his work preserved evidence of the tree's age, and when he sanded and polished it he counted 190 annual rings, dating its beginning to 1794. During that lifetime, the chronology associated with the tree included the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, George Washington's inauguration as first president in 1789, the Gold Rush from 1848 to 1855, California statehood in 1850, the Civil War from 1861 to 1863 during Abraham Lincoln's presidency, the Gettysburg Address in 1863, the opening of La Verne Heights Elementary in 1875 with 8 students, its move to this location in 1885, the establishment of Lordsburg's first post office in 1887, the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903, construction that same year of a second two-story school building costing $12,000, the incorporation of Lordsburg in 1906, the beginning of World War I in 1914, the renaming of Lordsburg to La Verne in 1917, the start of Prohibition in 1919, women's voting rights in 1920, the Great Depression in 1933 during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, construction of the present building in 1934 by the WPA under the New Deal, the Social Security Act in 1935, the attack on Pearl Harbor and U.S. entry into World War II in 1941, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and establishment of the United Nations in 1945, the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, U.S. entry into the Vietnam War in 1965, the first Moon landing in 1969, and the tree's dedication as a monument on March 14, 1995.
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La Verne, California · United States
