I'm not sure why Howard used a yellow filter on this aerial, but it turned asphalt streets really black and foliage eerie white. On the other hand it made it easier to figure out where you are, or would have if Howard hadn't provided two false clues on the back. He wrote "Mission Valley", which is not visible, and "Alverado Drive-In", which is misspelled -- and not the theater in the middle of the photo. Having said that, your house is probably in the photo, if you lived south of El Cajon Blvd. Too bad it's too small to see.

It is always fun to see the aerial photos and try to figure them out. This one had me baffled until I realized that indeed, it was Chollas Lake (confirmed by the radio towers). And to think – we didn’t even know Chollas Lake existed in the old days, but there it is!! I don’t remember what the drive-in was -- Barbara Bright Wilder ‘62

The drive-in theater in the Howard Rozelle photo is the Rancho Drive-In at Euclid and 94. As Euclid heads north it jogs to the right and becomes 54th Street. Chollas Lake is near the upper right corner. The white area at upper right corner (east of lake) is where College Grove Shopping Center was built. If you look very, very closely in the space above Chollas Lake you can just make out the three Navy radio towers that used to be there. To the northwest of Rancho Drive-In are the hills and valleys running along Home Avenue. I sure enjoy these photos and am glad you found them -- Julie Eskew Daniel ‘64

Great picture and I recognized the area immediately. The drive-in theater in the center was the Rancho drive-in. Hwy 94 is south of it. The other dark area to the northeast is the Chollas Reservoir. It appears that College Grove was being built at the time -- Susan Cone Milow ’68

This photo looks north showing El Cajon Blvd and 54th top center. More important to me, it shows the future site of Fedco, just north of the drive-in (Rancho Drive-In, per Rozelle #16). Actually, Fedco seems to be there in this photo (not in #16 though). One of the big early thrills in my life was setting up a darkroom in the 10th grade. My enlarger (a Durst 606) was bought at Fedco, special-order. I still have all my old B&W negatives, except for the ones I took for the Pacer and Centaur. Even though they were shot with my camera and my film, I felt compelled (or maybe WAS compelled) to leave them with Mr. Morphew when I graduated. I presume they're not in some Crawford archive. now--more likely in a landfill. As for the Rozelle photo, it looks to me like it was shot on infra-red film. A yellow filter on ordinary panchromatic film wouldn't do much to foliage or asphalt -- Bob Richardson '61

The former Rancho Drive-in movie theater is in the center of the photo. I could make out three neighborhoods where I used to live, and two more are just out of view. It looks like Crawford High School was completed when this photo was taken. The parking lots are visible, but Howard's filter doesn't show the buildings. In the upper left corner are the 3 towers at the Chollas Radio Station. They were 640 feet tall, and they were built in 1914. When the towers were torn down in the early 1990s, the newspaper article said that the first report of Pearl Harbor went out to the fleet from Chollas. The big radio station on Hawaii was shut down for maintenance that Sunday morning in 1941 (one of the many reasons the Japanese chose that time). I design power amplifiers for a living, and one of my amplifiers was the last to transmit from those towers. Our customer had arranged for a demonstration that my solid-state amplifiers could replace vacuum tube transmitters, and Chollas was available. I didn't know that the towers were coming down, or I would have gone out for a last visit. There are dozens of my amplifiers in use around the world now -- Mike Fry ‘60

This aerial shot has north at the top. Lincoln High is just above the bottom left of center. The exact center of the photo is the Rancho Drive-In, where Cox Communications is now located. State Route 94 runs east and west just under the Rancho. The body of water in the northeast quadrant is Chollas Lake. My house is 6 blocks west of the drive-in, at the NE corner of 48th & Federal Blvd. Just north of my house is Webster Elementary, where I attended K and 6th grades, and just south of the freeway from there is Gompers Jr. Hi., where I spent 3 more formative years. Going up 54th St. you can see Oak Park Elementary and Holy Spirit Church & School, where I spent from 1st thru 5th grades. Lutheran High is now located on that campus. St. Rita's Church & School is where Euclid, Imperial, and Churchward streets merge, a mile south of the drive-in. I think this photo predates Coca Cola Bottling Plant, but the "marble orchards" (cemeteries) are there in the southwest quadrant -- George Fish Jr. 71