Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society

** HERITAGE JUNCTION DISPATCH ** ** HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER ** Latest Edition Now Available Online!!... SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 2020 Issue Featuring: Wiley, Rice, Towsley, Lyon, Pico Canyons: How They Got Their Names, Part 1 by Alan Pollack 1880 United States Federal Census A Camulos Snapshot by Maria Christopher Dam Tour Rescheduled Hippie Lives Matter, & Odd Things You Find in Your Bed by John Boston Get Your Copy Here! https://scvhs.org/wp/heritage-junction-dispatch/

JUN 24 in #SCVHistory: 1980 - Saugus Train Station relocated to Heritage Junction > http://ow.ly/KDJa30qT5bu

Longtime William S. Hart Museum administrator Margi Bertram retired Friday.

Joe Kapp, widely heralded as the "Santa Clarita Valley's Greatest Athlete," is the only person ever to quarterback in all three title contests the Rose Bowl, Super Bowl, and Canada's Grey Cup. Born in 1938 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Joe lived in Salinas, California, until tenth grade and played football for Hart High School in Newhall (Class of 1955) where Coach Al Lewis made a lasting impression on his life and his career as player and coach. Lewis' mentorship was a precurso...r to Joe's philosophy of "Forty for Sixty." It's the idea of 40 men abandoning egos and factionalism to play as a team and give it their all for the full 60 minutes. Four seconds can turn victory into defeat if one side quits playing after 59 minutes and 56 seconds and the other side is a cohesive unit as Stanford learned in 1982 at the hands of Joe's beloved Cal Golden Bears. Joe's son J.J. Kapp, who retired in 2017 from a career as a public defender in the Bay Area, helped his father complete and publish his memoirs in 2020, in time for the 50th anniversary of the Minnesota Vikings' first Super Bowl trip. Proceeds from the book, "A Life of Leadership: Joe Kapp, 'The Toughest Chicano,'" help fund the Joe Kapp & Family Scholarships for first-time Latinx students at the University of California, Berkeley. The Hart/Newhall-related excerpts are republished on SCVHistory.com by permission of the Kapp Family (all rights reserved). We pick up the story where Joe is living in Van Nuys and is about to transfer to Hart High... https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/kappbook2020.htm

In recognition of the 30th anniversary (Saturday) of the death of the last Champion, here's another photo. ===== Actor Gene Autry's horse, Champion, trots through Vasquez Rocks. No written information accompanies the photograph other than "Gene Autry's Champion" on the back.... We're not sure which "Champion" this was. There were several horses Autry called "Champion" at different times and for different purposes. All were sorrels with a blaze and four white stockings (of varying sizes, which is how they can be distinguished). This is not Television Champion, the star of "The Adventures of Champion" (CBS, 1955-1956). However, the "CH" in the number at lower left (CH-801-67) tells us this photograph is from "The Adventures of Champion." Best guess? This is probably Champion Three, standing in for Television Champion. Yes, Autry's screen horses used stunt doubles. Champion Three was the "last" Champion, and the one best remembered locally. Champion Three traveled with Autry in the 1950s and retired in 1960. After Melody Ranch burned down in 1962, the property was used for an episode of "Combat," but mostly it sat fallow except as a home for the last Champion, which held on for another 28 years. He died at age 41 on May 9, 1990, and was buried on the grounds next to the barn. Autry wrote in 1995: "I have been back only a very few times. I kept [Melody Ranch] until the last living Champion died and then sold it to two enthusiastic young men, Renaud and Andre Veluzat, who decided to rebuild it." https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3751.htm

Follow the link to read the actual story. The following is just one of the sidebars. ===== What type of bison lived in Castaic just before and just after 11,700 years ago? They probably weren't Bison latifrons, the long-horned Pleistocene bison that ranged between Alaska and Mexico for 200,000 years. The latifrons Latin "latus" meaning "broad," "frons" meaning "front" died out around 22,000 years ago during the last glacial maximum, known as the Wisconsin glaciation in No...rth America, when the ice cover was at its greatest. Examining the teeth and bone, Chester Stock of what is now the Natural History Museum pegged the Castaic bison fossils to the borderline between the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. They were probably Bison antiquus, which were abundant in North America from about 18,000-10,000 years ago and conform to Stock's estimation. According to NHMLA, Bison antiquus is the most common large herbivore found in the La Brea Tar Pits, where they are "represented by at least 300 individuals, many of them young." From the big Bison latifrons down to the modern Bison bison, the animals gradually got smaller. After Bison antiquus came Bison occidentalis, which lived in North America from about 11,000-5,000 years ago. So, it's possible the "Castaic Creek" bison could be Bison occidentalis. Then about 5,000 years ago came the little Bison bison. To see those, you can visit William S. Hart Park in Newhall. Just don't tell the staff we said they're little. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3749.htm

Too long for Facebook. Follow link for full story, earthquake photos, more. ===== From the ex-Blum Family (Acton) collection comes this photograph of the newly (or nearly) completed St. Anthony's College in Santa Barbara, later known as St. Anthony's Seminary High School. A handwritten inscription on the back reads: "Dad Blum worked on this College as stone cutter in Santa Barbara / 1896." Blum, a master mason from Switzerland, arrived in the United States in 1880 or 1881 an...d homesteaded 160 acres in Aliso Canyon, Acton, in 1891. Blum worked on L.A. County's central "Red Stone Courthouse," which was under construction from 1888-1891. This photograph tells us he also worked on the Franciscan seminary building in Santa Barbara, which was under construction from 1898-1900. === A major earthquake rocked the buildings along State Street for a good 20 seconds just as people were going to work and opening their shops on Monday morning at 6:44 a.m. The date was June 29, 1925. Thirteen people were killed including an elderly gardener named John Shea who had tended the Santa Barbara Mission gardens for 50 years. He was working on the roses near the north wall of the seminary building when his head and arm were crushed.........FOLLOW LINK TO CONTINUE https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3805.htm

Downtown Newhall appears to be all decked out for the 1948 Fourth of July Parade on this real-photo postcard that was mailed from Newhall on July 12, 1948, postage 1 cent. The sender, identified only as "Blanche," admitted to the recipient that "really, Newhall looks better in the picture. Nice wide streets, and a very busy place" (follow link). Starting in the middle, at the southwest corner of Spruce and Market streets, we see the old Swall Hotel building, which is already ...Continue reading

Reginaldo Francisco del Valle, whose family owned the area that that is now Newhall, Saugus and Valencia (and more) when he was born here in 1854, was nominated for California Lieutenant Governor by acclamation at the 1890 Democratic State Convention. Previously, in 1880-1881, Del Valle served in the state Assembly. At the time (from 1849 to 1883), Assembly members were elected from state Senate districts. Del Valle was elected from the Senate district that comprised all of L...os Angeles County, which included the present Orange County. (It seceded in 1889). In 1882, Del Valle was elected to the state Senate. In 1883, he became the youngest person (to this day) ever to serve as Senate President pro tempore. Reginaldo del Valle wasn't the first Latino to represent the Santa Clarita Valley in the state Legislature that would have been his father, Ygnacio del Valle, who reportedly served in 1850 but he is believed to have been the last until 2016 with the election of Dante Acosta, a Republican. So popular and so respected was Del Valle in Southern California that editorially, the Los Angeles Times treated him with kid gloves. It wrote: "The Times, a Republican paper, takes pleasure in commending Señor Del Valle for his ability, integrity and worth as a gentleman, and will do what it can in a proper way to elect his opponent." By a fairly narrow margin, The Times got its wish. The Southern California Democrat lost his bid for lieutenant governor to a Northern California Republican, John B. Reddick of Calaveras County, by 50-45.9 percent. Also-rans in the race were the Prohibition Party candidate, A.M. Hough (2.7 percent) and the Know Nothing Party candidate, Ben Morgan (1.3 percent). Know Nothings were nativists who opposed the Catholic church and immigration especially Irish and German, although in California also Chinese immigration. They started in the 1850s as a secret society whose members were instructed to say "I know nothing" when questioned. Del Valle's gubernatorial running mate, San Francisco Mayor Edward B. Pond, lost to the Republican, Henry H. Markham. John Reddick served one term as lieutenant governor, 1891-1895, and died in the latter year at age 51. Reginaldo del Valle went on to serve for 21 years on L.A.'s Board of Public Service Commissioners at the dawn of the 20th Century, much of that time as board president, effectively making him William Mulholland's boss during the planning and construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and its network of dams and reservoirs. Del Valle retired from the board in 1929 and died in 1938 at age 83. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lat18900822delvalle.htm

APR 27 in #SCVHistory: 1971 - Tejon Ranch Co. allows Fire Dept. to torch the historic Hotel Lebec > http://ow.ly/Z7eF30qBauV

The Saugus Rehabilitation Center, aka Saugus Drunk Farm, on Bouquet Canyon Road today's Santa Clarita Central Park and Rio Vista Water Treatment Facility was a City of Los Angeles detention facility in the 1950s and 1960s when L.A. still operated its own court and jail systems. The 1849 California Constitution empowered the Legislature to create various types of "inferior" courts, as they were called (i.e., non-superior). Most small towns had justice or police courts to h...Continue reading