Historical Riches Thrive With Growth : Preservationist Spirit Takes Root

Remnants of once-booming Western mining towns that sprang up a hundred or so years ago are nestled in some of the many Santa Clarita Valley canyons.

The ancient oak under which in 1842 a worker pulled a wild onion from the ground and discovered gold still grows in Placerita Canyon.

A dozen sites in the valley have been designated as either historical landmarks or points of historical interest by the state Historical Resources Commission. They range from train depots to the site of a dam disaster that killed at least 450 people.

The Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society lists dozens of other sites in a 350-square-mile area that it has decided deserve the status of state historical landmarks. They include the world’s oldest existing oil refinery, a famed rock formation listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, early Western filming locations, homes and other sites.

A New Awareness

But only in recent years, as they watched historic buildings and 100-year-old oaks fall victim to development, have valley residents paid much attention to the area’s rich cultural heritage. As a result, some of the more significant landmarks have been lost.

The neglected buildings that were Lyons Station, built in 1853 as the valley’s first stagecoach stop, and a nearby resort for wealthy teetotalers, burned to the ground in 1919. A cemetery now stands on the Newhall site, and a state historic plaque marks the station’s location.

And a historic marker is all that remains of Newhall’s Lang Station, where on Sept. 5, 1876, the railroad from the north and south joined. The station and the railroad connected Southern California with the rest of the nation, leading to the growth of Los Angeles. But it was abandoned in the late 1960s and torn down in 1971.

During the last few years, the first school in Saugus was razed to make room for a shopping center, and the historic William Bonelli estate on the grounds of what is now the Saugus Speedway was torn down.

Nonetheless, a cultural awareness has come with the explosive growth in the valley during the last 15 years.

Population statistics illustrate the area’s attraction to housing developers and buyers of new homes. In 1973, the valley had only 52,000 residents. Today, there are 120,000, and projections by county planners place the valley’s population by 2010 at a minimum of 270,000.

Residents have united countless times to oppose dense developments in attempts to preserve their rural life styles and save the historic oak trees from the developer’s ax. In turn, the historical society has become more active.

A Lot Bulldozed

“We’ve seen a lot of things bulldozed lately,� said Gerald G. Reynolds, curator of the society, which was formed by local preservationists 13 years ago.

Earlier this year, the society raised about $8,000 to move the old Mitchell Adobe, a state historic landmark, to a heritage square being assembled on San Fernando Road in downtown Newhall. The adobe, built in 1860, was the first headquarters of the Sulphur Springs School District, the second-oldest school district in Los Angeles County.

The heritage square now has the old Saugus train station, moved there June 24, 1980, to serve as the historical society’s headquarters. Also on the square now are the Callahan School, a small one-room schoolhouse that dates to an 1890s mining camp; Kingsberry House, built for August Ferrier in 1911 and eventually owned by Charles Kingsberry, a Spanish-American War veteran; and Ramona Chapel, a miniature chapel used as a movie set and wedding chapel during the late 1920s and the 1930s.

Reynolds said the society is trying to raise money to move one of the homes built by Southern California Edison Co. during the 1930s for its workers tending transmission lines in Saugus.

The Edison Houses, as they have been named, are “outstanding examples of Bavarian-style bungalows,� Reynolds said. Still owned by the utility, the homes are earmarked for demolition later this year.

“We’re a volunteer organization and can only do so much,� Reynolds said. The 300-member society has limited funds, he said.

The historical society has asked the Santa Clarita City Council to form some sort of official cultural heritage organization to help preserve remaining landmarks.

Councilwoman Jo Anne Darcy, who helps organize the annual Newhall Walk of Fame celebration, said the valley is “a veritable treasure of Western heritage.� She said the city will do all it can to help the society with its mission. For example, Darcy said, cultural heritage preservation is being written into the general plan of the new city.

The other council members also have expressed an interest in playing a role in preserving the area’s culture.

Darcy said city officials do not think a formal cultural heritage commission is needed to oversee things such as the renovation of historic structures. “Maybe we could have some sort of task force,� she said.

Recently, city officials extracted a promise from Pacific Bell, owner of the old Good Templars Hall, built in 1889, that the building will not be destroyed. The lodge was built by Henry Clay Needham, a leader in the Prohibition Party, as a meeting place for teetotaling socialites.

It later served as a home to the pioneer Pardee family and, more recently, as a commercial building. The building’s last tenant, the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce, moved out in February of this year to a modern office building in Valencia.

Reynolds said there is talk that the building, now at 24275 Walnut St., Newhall, will be donated to the historical society.

“If they give it to us, we’ll still have to move it,� he said, adding that the society needs financial help to move more historic structures.

As a first step, the historical society three months ago began taking a survey to determine what historic structures exist in the city, Reynolds said.

“We drive up and down streets and take photographs,� he said. Before the society asks anything more of the city, Reynolds said, it must have a list of homes and commercial buildings that are architecturally significant.

The surveying is slow, he said, because few of the society’s members are willing to undertake the time-consuming task. Then the buildings’ owners must be determined and contacted, Reynolds said.

Still, society members have made a few discoveries already.

For example, a single-family home in the 24000 block of Pine Street in Newhall was constructed in 1878 as a guest house by California Star Oil Co., a forerunner of Standard Oil. It is a rental unit now.

Also on the society’s list are: an 1873 home built for a Lyons’ Station employee, now on 13th Street; the valley’s first jail house, which opened in 1906 on Spruce Street, now a law office; the home of the late Los Angeles County Sheriff Eugene W. Biscailuz, on Chestnut Street, now a private residence; a single-family home on Kansas Street that originally was part of Newhall Elementary School; the first sheriff’s office in the valley, now a commercial building on Sixth Street; and the valley’s first courthouse on Railroad Avenue, now an office building.

Although all those structures are in Newhall, the valley’s oldest established community, the valley’s historical landmarks are not limited to the 40-square-mile city, by any measure. And preservationists are worrying that more of the area’s history could be lost in Saugus and Canyon Country, both older communities, as well as in the new community of Valencia.

The historical society also is working to preserve historic structures outside the city of Santa Clarita in an area that encompasses Val Verde, Agua Dulce, Castaic, Acton and Gorman.

Twenty-six monuments in the larger area are included in a guide to historically significant sites that the society has compiled for visitors.

Fort Tejon near Gorman, established in 1854 by the Army as the western terminus of the Camel Corps, is on the list. The fort was abandoned Sept. 11, 1864, and is now a state park. The Civil War Assn. recreates battles there each year.

The guide includes Mentryville, an old mining community and site of the state’s first oil well in Pico Canyon; the Oak of the Golden Dream in Placerita Canyon, where the resting worker discovered gold seven years before the Sutter’s Mill gold strike, and the Sterling Borax Works in Tick Canyon, where two miners looking for gold in 1905 sunk a shaft and, instead, found a rich deposit of calcium borate, or borax.

The William S. Hart Park and Museum, the estate built by the late cowboy star and used in early Western films, contains several historic structures open to the public. Hart’s collection of early Western memorabilia and the original furnishings are still there. The buffaloes, which Hart brought to the ranch when he retired there in 1925, still roam the grounds. When Hart died in 1946, the estate was left to the county.

A memorable spot on the guide is the St. Francis Dam disaster site in San Francisquito Canyon. The dam was built in 1925 as part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which stretched 338 miles from Owens Valley to Sylmar. An engineering marvel in its time, the 185-foot-high concrete-wall structure held 38,000 acre-feet of water.

The dam collapsed on March 12, 1928, sending 12 billion gallons of water down the canyon toward Saugus. The flooding waters turned west, following the Santa Clara River into Ventura County. The water reached the Pacific Ocean five hours later, leaving in its wake at least 450 people dead and thousands homeless. At that time, it was California’s second-worst disaster, exceeded only by the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.

To ensure that future generations do not forget the St. Francis Dam disaster and other events of the past, Reynolds, a guide at the Castaic Lake Visitors Center, is writing a book chronicling the Santa Clarita Valley’s history.

“There is no written history,� he said. “Now that we’re a city, we should at least have a written history.�

SANTA CLARITA VALLEY HISTORICAL SITES 1. CASTAIC JUNCTION -- Site of the largest Indian village-- Chaguayabit--in the Santa Clarita Valley in 1804, the junction was also home to a railroad depot built in 1888 to move cattle and honey to market. It is now rented out as a filming site.

2. RANCHO SAN FRANCISCO -- In 1838, when Mexico broke up its vast mission holdings, a young army officer, Antonio del Valle, was granted 75 square miles. He built a ranch and named it Rancho San Francisco. A marker identifies the site.

3. PICO No. 4 AND MENTRYVILLE -- Gen. Andres Pico skimmed oil here for his ranch in San Fernando in 1850. C.A. “Alex� Mentry redrilled Pico No. 4 in 1876, and it became the longest-producing oil well in the world, shutting down just last year. The area grew into an oil town named Mentryville.

4. ST. FRANCIS DAM DISASTER SITE -- The 185-foot-high dam, built in 1925, was an engineering marvel of its day. But the St. Francis Dam collapsed March 12, 1928, sending 12 billion gallons of water rushing out, leaving 450 people dead and countless others homeless.

5. MELODY RANCH -- Ernie Hickson of Monogram Pictures built a movie ranch known as Rancho Placeritos here in 1930. Cowboy star Gene Autry bought the ranch in 1952 and renamed it Melody Ranch. Autry, who still owns the land, filmed his television series there.

6. GOOD TEMPLARS HALL -- The hall was built in the late 1880s as a social lodge for the teetotaling friends of Henry Clay Needham, founder of Newhall Water Co. and a candidate for U.S. Senate on the Prohibition ticket in 1920.

7. WILLIAM S. HART PARK AND MUSEUM -- An early Western actor, Hart filmed several of his movies on this 100-acre spread. Upon his death in 1946, Hart left the estate to Los Angeles County. Buffalo still roam the land. Tours are offered weekly.

8. SAUGUS DEPOT -- The depot, built in 1887, was moved to its present site in 1980 by the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, which now uses it for a headquarters and museum.

9. SAN FERNANDO RAILROAD TUNNEL -- Two crews of Chinese workers in 1876 dug out what was then the third-longest railroad tunnel in the world. It still is used by Southern Pacific freight trains.

10. PIONEER OIL REFINERY -- The “Pioneer,� as it is now called, was built in 1878 by using parts of a refinery that was located at Lyons Station. Today, only two of the original four stills remain.

11. LYONS STATION -- In 1854, brothers Stanford and Cyrus Lyons set up this stagecoach stop for weary travelers. In 1889, the location became home for a colony of 20 teetotaling families. The site is now a cemetery but a plaque marks the spot.

12. BEALE’S CUT -- In 1862, Gen. Edward Fitzgerald Beale and soldiers carved the 90-foot-deep by 80-yard-long passageway through the mountains using only picks and shovels. They opened a new trade route to Northern California.

13. OAK OF THE GOLDEN DREAM -- In 1842, gold was first discovered in California under this ancient oak tree almost seven years before the more famous gold strike at Sutter’s Mill in Northern California. Hundreds of prospectors flocked to the area, now Placerita Canyon Park.

14. MITCHELL ADOBE -- Built on this remote site by Col. Thomas Findlay Mitchell in 1860, the adobe later housed the Sulphur Springs School District, the second-oldest district in Los Angeles County. The adobe itself was moved near the Saugus Depot early in 1988.

15. VASQUEZ ROCKS -- The striking sandstone rock formations were named after outlaw Tiburicio Vasquez, who used the area as a hide-out. He was caught and hanged in 1875. Many archeological sites and Indian rock paintings can be found in the area, now a county park.

16. LANG STATION -- The railroad merged from the north and south at Lang Station on Sept. 5, 1876, connecting Southern California with the rest of the nation and initiating the growth of Los Angeles. The station was torn down in 1971, but a plaque marks the site.