Our history stolen by fire
Afire isn’t fair, randomly destroying whatever may lie in its path, including homes, personal property, animals, crops and, in Moorpark’s case, the history of a community.

The Moorpark Historical Society’s holding container, kept on Mary and Charlie Schwabauer’s property, was destroyed by the recent Shekell fire. This container had stored a number of one-of-a-kind artifacts, and the loss is a devastating blow to anyone who values the importance of local history.

The rare items the Schwabauers had saved included area maps, old Moorpark High School yearbooks, local Indian artifacts, irretrievable newspaper clippings and photographs, and other valuable memorabilia. It’s enough to make a historian cry.

The Moorpark Historical Society began in the 1970s. Since then, the members have been looking for a suitable place in which to store the local historical collection.

Although the society has $80,000 saved toward the purchase of permament historical museum, it has yet to find an affordable parcel of land or storefront that it could buy. No one has stepped forward to donate space that would house our city’s history—neither the city government, school district or local businesses. (Maybe in our new library?)

And now, the historical artifacts that have been collected for more than a quarter century have gone up in smoke.

But not all is lost.

Start your own digging. Go into your basements and attics and see what historical items might be squirreled away. Talk to parents, grandparents, relatives and old friends, even if they have moved away from the area, and see if they can find old high school yearbooks, antiques unique to our area, mementos, photos and newspaper clippings, etc. We’ll call it the great Moorpark historical scavenger hunt.

For a clear idea of exactly what was lost, please see our story on page 2.

To share your discoveries with the Moorpark Historical Society, call society president Debi Ryono at (805) 390-2362.