1950

1959

California Lutheran College was founded on a ranch donated by Richard Pederson, the son of Norwegian immigrants.

Long before Pederson settled on land, Conejo Valley was home to the Chumash people, who lived in the villages of Satwiwa, Sap’wi and and Hipuk. Many Cal Lutheran faculty and staff acknowledge the university’s placement on what was originally Chumash lands. These lands were first claimed by Spanish “explorer” Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542, displacing the Chumash.

Learn more in this video created by the Friends of the Los Angeles River.

According to an article by the Thousand Oaks Acorn, “Pederson’s parents, Norwegian immigrants Lars and Karn Pederson, paid $3 an acre for their land in 1890.” Pederson donated his 130-acre ranch in 1957. This ranch would become Cal Lutheran.

July: Laboratory leaks nuclear radiation into Conejo Valley. 

Learn more in this video created by the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Work Group.

According to College of Our Dreams, “the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, built in 1948, was an experimental sodium-cooled reactor designed for commercial purposes… in July 1959, a chemical leaked into the liquid sodium disabling its ability to cool the nuclear core. The Chernobyl-plant did not have a containment dome, and the meltdown vented radiation into the atmosphere. After several more incidents it was shut down in 1964. Cleanup of the sites continued until 2005.”