By the late 1960’s, community members, concerned with preserving the heritage of Covina's early pioneers, had flooded the Covina Library with a vast amount of historical material.  Rinda Pollard and Lucy Wheeler were two of the most prolific contributors. Rinda Pollard brought information and enthusiasm, and Lucy Wheeler, an amateur photographer, meticulously assembled scrapbooks that documented important events in our city's history.

Covina's Librarian, Dorothy Weeding, realized that the Library simply was not going to have enough room to store the promising collection. She asked the Friends of the Library if the group would be interested in organizing an historical society to take care of the items.  Soon a plan would emerge to go beyond storing the collection and instead exhibit and share it.

The Covina Valley Historical Society organized in 1969.  The first meeting of the Society took place at the library in January of that year.  Those attending selected officers shortly thereafter. They elected Charles Colver as our first President, Laura Brady as our first Secretary and Karl Ponsey as our first Treasurer.

Increasing membership was the first order of business for the fledgling group.  Meetings moved from the Library to the Community Room at the Episcopal Church; featuring delicious potlucks and guest speakers who gave programs about local history.

The collection of artifacts remained at the library, but the hunt for an appropriate place to display them had begun.  Little did they know that such an opportunity would soon arise from a contaminated well and a jail too small.

The historic Firehouse Jail building was constructed in 1911. The jail was actually used until 1974. Tours include a visit to one of the four jail cells.  This part of the tour is very popular with our younger visitors.

The Firehouse Jail was built in 1911 for a volunteer Fire Department and one City Marshall. Covina was a rural town with a population of about 2000.

In 1974, the City Council of Covina decided to cap City Well #2, located just outside Covina's Firehouse Jail building, because fertilizer pollution had tainted its water.

In 1976, it became clear that more than four jail cells were necessary for a modern police department to function.  The decision was made to build a new public safety facility, with a modern fire department headquarters.  A site was chosen at the east end of the old school lot in the center of town, along Second Avenue, facing Citrus.  The new station is about two blocks north and a little east of the original Firehouse Jail and the facility is still in use today.

Since the old firehouse jail site was right behind City Hall, Society members considered it an ideal home for our community museum. The building was (and is!) small, but it provided the perfect venue. Bill Temple, Karl Ponsey, Woody Core, Emp Knorr and Vivian Quick spearheaded the effort to secure the historic building for the Society.  The City agreed.

So, the next challenge for the group was to transform the Firehouse Jail into an appropriate place to display artifacts and store historic documents. Concrete settling basins had to be broken up and filled in. A new slab was poured, a door between the firehouse and the jail was added along with carpeting and paint. Donations of display cases poured in. Artifacts were gathered together and displays were built. Although the Museum is small (only about 2000 square feet), it offers visitors an intimate and interesting glimpse into Covina's past.

In 1977, the Covina Woman's Club became our permanent meeting place for quarterly general meetings of the Society and we still meet there today.