Sixty years into its official cityhood, Thousand Oaks can be proud of a long history going back to the days of adobe buildings and continuing through the construction of a central lake — where kids once fished from dirt banks and were paid, it is said, to catch “mud hens” there — to the flourishing of civic culture expressed for decades in the Conejo Valley Days parades.
60 Years for Thousand Oaks: A Young City With a Rich History
Lancers on the March: Members of the Thousand Oaks High School Lancers Marching Band step smartly in the 1965 Conejo Valley Days Parade. (Frank Knight, Thousand Oaks Library Local History Photo Collection)Making Adobe Bricks for the Casa Conejo: Catherine Craig Wilbur, wife of Jesse Wilbur, makes a brick for the adobe, built in 1922 and demolished in 1973 when Southern California Edison purchased the property. A time capsule with photographs and a letter were removed from the house when it was scheduled to be demolished. A second photo shows the casitas and two thousand adobe bricks used to make the Casa Conejo. The house in the background was probably the Wilburs’ temporary home. Photograph taken in 1922.A Day at the Portrait Studio: The Caspar Borchard family pictured in their Sunday best. Back row: Casper, Rosa, Mary and Leo. Middle row: Frank, Theresa Maring holding Charles, Caspar holding Theresa, Antone.The Way it Was: As seen from the Westlake Blvd. side, three boys fish in Westlake Lake (and another sits higher on the bank) as two small sailboats chase along in front of new homes in the Westlake development. In the distance can be seen the La Venta Bridge connecting the mainland with “the island.” This transparency was taken in the 1960s for real estate advertising.
