Stories of Old Glendora

On a bustling Friday morning in April 1887, George D. Whitcomb began to auction off lots in a newly laid-out town he called Glendora. Starting out as a dusty train stop on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the town of Glendora sprang to life as one of the Los Angeles region’s vibrant hubs of the citrus industry and remained so well into the twentieth century. Local historian Ryan Lee Price recounts on these pages some of the characters and events that shaped Glendora’s formative years: Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Chance, train wrecks and smudge pots, fan dancer Sally Rand, the tragic tale of the Converse family and how the Compromise Line Road got its name.