Los Angeles County Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, left, actor Leo Carrillo, center, and Gov. Earl Warren from “Biscailuz: Sheriff of the New West.”

The impending retirement of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is a good time to dip into the archives.

Eugene Biscailuz, above, who died in 1969, was sheriff of Los Angeles County until his retirement in 1958. Biscailuz became undersheriff in 1923. He was appointed in 1932 to replace Sheriff William I. Traeger, who was elected to Congress. Biscailuz was elected to the post in 1934, winning reelection in 1938, 1942, 1946, 1950 and 1954.

Sheriff Sherman Block, left, and former Sheriff Peter J. Pitchess in an undated photo,  probably taken about 1982.

Biscailuz retired in 1958 and was replaced by former FBI Agent Peter J. Pitchess, above right,  who became undersheriff in 1953 and was elected sheriff in 1958 with Biscailuz’s endorsement. (The Times also endorsed Pitchess). Pitchess won election by more than 150,000 votes in the June 1958 primary against rancher John Doran.

Pitchess, who died in 1999, stepped down in early 1982, and the Board of Supervisors appointed Undersheriff Sherman Block, above left, as his successor. Block died in 1998 during a campaign for his fifth term in a race against Lee Baca.