A committee representing the Odd Fellows and the historical society chose the site. Thanks to a recording made that day, we have a full description of this historic event.
After Ira Ketcham, pastor of Central Christian Church, gave the invocation, Legory O’Loughlin, president of the historical society, said, “We are dreaming of the day when we’ll have markers throughout the city.”
Thomas Cole, leader of Noble Grand, Glendale Odd Fellows, invoked the lodge’s past, saying, “The lodge is older than the city itself.” Cole spoke of the many civic leaders who were lodge members, including Edward D. Goode, who promoted incorporation as a city; Elkanah Richardson, a trustee of Glendale High School, and Sherer himself.
Carroll Parcher, then-publisher of the News-Press, was next at the microphone.
“It is appropriate that the Odd Fellows, the oldest such organization in Glendale, join with [the historical society] on this site,” Parcher reportedly said. “So much of the planning and growth of Glendale took place here.”
He remembered Sherer well.
“It was in that little print shop up on North Glendale Avenue, where he operated the Glendale News, that I went with my father on business,” Parcher said. “It was there that I developed an interest in printer’s ink.”
After an interlude while John Butler played his accordion, Mayor Paul Burkhard introduced two council members, George Wickham and John Lawson, and local Assemblyman H. Allen Smith.
Other longtime residents were introduced, including Dora Verdugo, “a real old-timer,” the announcer said.
