Walnut Historical Society members and city officials will host a book signing at the Costco in the City of Industry Saturday.
The event, which runs from 1 to 3 p.m. at the store located at 17550 Castleton St., is to showcase the "Images of America: Walnut" book that charts the city's history in photographs.
The book was released in June.
The city has been working on compiling the history for a few years now. The project kicked into high gear in January 2011 when the Walnut Historical Society was revived and the City Council approved an agreement with Arcadia Publishing to put out the book. Under the agreement, the city will get an 8 percent royalty on the net amounts received from the sales of the book.
The book showcases Walnut pre and post cityhood in more than 200 photographs and captions, from the founding families to Mt. San Antonio College to the development of tract homes in the 1960s.
Councilman Antonio "Tony" Cartagena helped get the effort underway when his most recent term as mayor and said at the release party that he included the book in his list of goals.
The longtime councilman said when he traveled to other states, people often asked three questions, he said.
“Where is Walnut,” he said. “What is Walnut? What do you have in Walnut?”
June Wentworth, president of the historical society, said at the book launch that she has called Walnut home for arond 47 years and she enjoyed seeing her city's history captured in a book.
“We wanted to show that in this book,” she said, “that this is a wonderful, beautiful city to live in.”
