>> 50 Years Ago — The man who started his career as bus boy in a Vienna restaurant to become owner of some of El Centro’s largest and finest hotels is dead. He is John Brunner owner of the now-burned historic Barbara Worth Hotel in El Centro, as well as the Las Palmas Motel and Restaurant and the San Carlos Hotel on South 5th Street.
Brunner died today in Brawley’s Pioneer Memorial Hospital at the age of 80. He had been a patient there since April suffering from a long illness.
>> 40 Years Ago — Chinese food is available in the Valley Plaza Shopping Center, with the opening this week of C&H Chinese Food to Go at 1689 Main, northwest of Mayfair Market.
The restaurant offers family-style Chinese dinners to take-out, with a menu that includes Peking duck. Several booths also provide seating for about 30 diners.
Owners are Mrs. Lok Dal Lee of Los Angeles and Rafael Wong, who was manager of the Shangri-La Restaurant in Mexicali for the past 14 years. Wong also will be the chief cook at C&H.
>> 30 Years Ago — JACUMBA — A $200,000 fire has destroyed a wing of the Jacumba Hotel, the historic resort built over the largest mineral springs in San Diego County.
The blaze, which broke out about 1 a.m., forced the evacuation of more than 20 occupants from the 65-unit hotel, including an elderly woman who was rescued before she jumped from a second-story window.
There were no injuries, according to Fire Chief Joe O’Brien.
Built in 1925, the four-story hotel and spa has been a popular destination for thousands of sufferers who made therapeutic pilgrimage to the mountain community of 400.
>> 20 Years Ago — Heavy rains caused a residential street to collapse Friday, creating a 15-by-25-foot crater at least 15 feet deep and rupturing a sewer pipe.
City workers worked around the clock in the rain Friday and Saturday, pumping raw sewage from the crater on Adler Avenue between Grant and Calexico streets. The sewage was pumped into the New River, about 1,000 feet south of the street. The collapse ruptured a major city sewer line, through which about 40 percent of the city’s sewage passes on its way to a sewer treatment plant, according to Public Works Director Mart Martinez.
Brunner died today in Brawley’s Pioneer Memorial Hospital at the age of 80. He had been a patient there since April suffering from a long illness.
>> 40 Years Ago — Chinese food is available in the Valley Plaza Shopping Center, with the opening this week of C&H Chinese Food to Go at 1689 Main, northwest of Mayfair Market.
The restaurant offers family-style Chinese dinners to take-out, with a menu that includes Peking duck. Several booths also provide seating for about 30 diners.
Owners are Mrs. Lok Dal Lee of Los Angeles and Rafael Wong, who was manager of the Shangri-La Restaurant in Mexicali for the past 14 years. Wong also will be the chief cook at C&H.
>> 30 Years Ago — JACUMBA — A $200,000 fire has destroyed a wing of the Jacumba Hotel, the historic resort built over the largest mineral springs in San Diego County.
The blaze, which broke out about 1 a.m., forced the evacuation of more than 20 occupants from the 65-unit hotel, including an elderly woman who was rescued before she jumped from a second-story window.
There were no injuries, according to Fire Chief Joe O’Brien.
Built in 1925, the four-story hotel and spa has been a popular destination for thousands of sufferers who made therapeutic pilgrimage to the mountain community of 400.
>> 20 Years Ago — Heavy rains caused a residential street to collapse Friday, creating a 15-by-25-foot crater at least 15 feet deep and rupturing a sewer pipe.
City workers worked around the clock in the rain Friday and Saturday, pumping raw sewage from the crater on Adler Avenue between Grant and Calexico streets. The sewage was pumped into the New River, about 1,000 feet south of the street. The collapse ruptured a major city sewer line, through which about 40 percent of the city’s sewage passes on its way to a sewer treatment plant, according to Public Works Director Mart Martinez.
