Column: Frantz Cleaners to hang it up after 85 years

Known for its rooftop sign and “In by 10, Out by 4” motto, Frantz Cleaners in Pomona is closing June 7. Kay Richards, who’s owned the legacy business since 1970, is retiring and has sold the property. The business began in 1937 downtown and moved to Garey and Orange Grove in 1952, shortly before the freeway opened. I write about Frantz in my Wednesday column, as well as about Gloria Molina’s quilting at the LA County Fair.

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Column: Vested interest: Fair mascot Thummer turns 75

Thummer the pig debuted as the Los Angeles County Fair’s mascot in 1948, making this his 75th anniversary. He’s gone through a lot of changes, including his fashion, name and even gender. I root around in this pig’s history for my Friday column.

I was a little surprised, by the way, to Google Thummer on Thursday and find that there is no history of the character online beyond a single paragraph. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. When you cover Pomona, you’re always breaking new ground.

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Column: In a first, LACMA curates LA County Fair art exhibit

The Millard Sheets Art Center at the LA County Fair used to have world-class art exhibits when its namesake was curating shows in the 1930s to 1950s that were seen by hundreds of thousands. After a long decline and as something of an afterthought in fair planning, this year the center is overseen by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, with a show of photography from its collection. And the arrangement might not be for just one fair only. I write about this year’s show, the center’s past and its possible future in my Friday column.

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Column: Flash! Grandson visits famed Frasher photo archive

The Pomona Public Library’s special collections department has the archives of Burton Frasher Sr., some 60,000 photo negatives as well as prints, postcards and more from the photographer who was based in Pomona from 1920 to 1955 and roamed the Southwest shooting images for Frashers Fotos postcards. Frasher’s grandson, a third-generation photographer who lives in Joshua Tree, visited the library for the first time recently to see the collection. I was there to greet him and learn more about the family. Find out more in my Wednesday column.

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Column: Long-running play about Chicano Moratorium returns

I happened upon a little project worth some ink: A long-lived community theater group is reviving its one-act play, “The Silver Dollar,” this weekend in Pomona. It’s about the Chicano Moratorium and the death of journalist Ruben Salazar and has been performed by the group, its originators, almost annually since 1980. That’s the subject of my Wednesday column.

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Column: After fire, cigar lounge vows to rise from ashes

Readers with long memories may recall a February 2020 column on a building in downtown Pomona last used for a restaurant, Benvenuti, that closed during Clinton’s first term and was vacant ever since. Since then the building was, wonder of wonders, renovated and reopened as a cigar lounge, said to be the largest in the state. And then, a fire (in the alley behind the business) did enough damage to close the business. I write about this highly unusual saga in my Sunday column.

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