Go East, young Cattleman's

A post here about restaurants that had formerly occupied a building on eastern Foothill Boulevard in La Verne, inspired by a question by reader Tom Gay, brought a note of (intended) correction from reader Tom Meader.

Meader wrote: "Cattleman's Wharf was on the west end of La Verne. Currently the 99 Cent store is in the approximate location. Nowhere near what was at that time Liberty Ford."

Meader is mostly right, partly wrong. Cattleman's did spend most of its life in western La Verne, but it evidently did move to the Ford property in eastern La Verne for a brief period before closing, according to Eric Scherer of the Planning Department.

Cattleman's began at 1504 Foothill Blvd., near Wheeler Avenue, in a building fashioned like a lighthouse, with beams and pulleys, as if the cattle boat had just pulled up at the dock. Everybody into the kitchen! The menu cover gives a date of 1975; click on the thumbnail version for a larger view.

In the early 1980s, Cattleman's seems to have moved to the Ford property before vanishing, according to Planning Department files. So Cattleman's Wharf existed in both locations, making both Toms correct. I love splitting the difference. Everyone's happy (or unhappy).

The Cattleman's lighthouse later housed the La Verne Cattle Co., as seen in the photo below, and Toppers, a restaurant that morphed into a night club and was shut down in the late 1980s. The building was demolished in the 1990s and the site became a Pep Boys and a 99 Cents Only store.

Undated photo of the La Verne Cattle Co., courtesy La Verne Planning Department