Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society

Photo Gallery: Eagle Scout Thanked for Installing Flagpole from Saugus Rehab at Heritage Junction, 1985 Photos by Gary Thornhill for The Signal newspaper. December 15, 1985 The flagpole in front of the Saugus Train Station at Heritage Junction Historic Park previously stood outside the entrance to the Saugus Rehabilitation Center at 27150 Bouquet Canyon Road (now the main entrance to Santa Clarita Central Park). The L.A. City-owned "drunk farm," as it was known, opened in 1...954. Operational control transfered in 1965 to the County of Los Angeles, which closed it in 1967. The flagpole was donated to the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society and relocated to Heritage Junction in June 1983. It was erected two years later. The project was headed by Eagle Scout candidate Loren Clark, who organized fundraisers and enlisted helpers to assist with the restoration and installation of flagpole on a base of used brick in front of the 1888 Southern Pacific train station. Clark was thanked for his efforts at the Historical Society's annual Open House, which in 1985 doubled as the society's 10th birthday party (these photos). https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/sg19851214scvhs.htm

Get Your Thrills at Six Flags Heritage Junction {{FOLLOW LINK FOR PHOTO GALLERY}} June 8, 2021 New arrival at Heritage Junction Historic Park: A repurposed ...coach from the original Colossus roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Fiberglass body with steel tube (lap bar fitting), mounted on plywood with (4) large casters and (2) wheel chocks. Width 48", length 56" (as cut), height 28" (excluding casters). Colossus was the world's tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster when it opened in 1978. It closed in 2014 and reemerged in 2015 as the hybrid Twisted Colossus coaster. This coach, made by Morgan Manufacturing (then) of Scotts Valley, Calif., has an "earliest" date of 1987, when Morgan started providing rolling stock for Colossus, and a "latest" date of 2001, when Morgan ceased production. This particular coach was transformed into the base of a Christmas tree that Six Flags California (Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor) donated to the Santa Clarita Valley Boys and Girls Club's inaugural Festival of Trees fundraising auction in November 2003. The tree, along with its coach-base, was purchased by local philanthropists Harold and Jacqueline Petersen, who donated the coach back to the SCV Boys and Girls Club for its June 2021 Benefit Auction, where it was acquired for the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. According to Six Flags Vice President Tim Burkhart (pers. comm. 2021), the Christmas tree was inserted into the steel tube "where the lap bars would fit into when pulled down." The coach originally had a second row, making it a 4-seater, and the fiberglass shell sat on a steel chassis. For the Festival of Trees, the shell was removed from its chassis, cut in half, and mounted on a plywood base with casters for mobility on the auction floor and for subsequent transport. Morgan's Colossus trains had six coaches. The front end of the lead coach had a flat front with a cast Colossus logo. According to Burkhart, "this was an intermediate coach from the center of the train."

FOLLOW LINK FOR SCREENSHOTS of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Saugus train station as seen in the feature film, "Suddenly," starring Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden. Location filming took place in Saugus and Newhall in April 1954. With the exception of the initial establishing shot, images are presented in runtime order. Our captions call out internal and external features pertinent to the rearrangment and restoration of the depot into a Southern Pacific train station muse...um, which is underway in 2021. (Since 1980, the depot has served as a general SCV history museum. The Pardee House at Heritage Junction will become the general SCV history museum.) Note that today, north and south are reversed. In 1954, the depot stood on the east side of the track (at Drayton Street), facing the track. In 1980 the depot was moved to the west side of the track (at Heritage Junction in William S. Hart Park), facing the track. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3789.htm

Volunteer Guy Robert Horanberg hangs new blinds in the Saugus Train Station at Heritage Junction (on a few different occasions lately)

5/17/2021 - Hats off to our good friend Renaud Veluzat (owner of Melody Ranch) who donated plywood and OSB from a closed-out film set for us to use at Heritage Junction. Thank you!!

https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3783.htm Southern Pacific Railroad Engine No. 1629 appears to be taking on water in this color transparency (slide film) by Tom Gildersleeve, an eventual Santa Clarita resident and a nationally renowned rail photographer for many decades. Little could Gildersleeve have known, when he made this photograph, that he would one day share responsibility for this locomotive as a member of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society Board of Direct...Continue reading

Santa Clarita Concrete Donates Rancho Camulos Museum Repair Job 4/30/2021 Whether it was subsidence after many years of drought in the 2010s or residual damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which took its toll on Rancho Camulos, it’s hard to tell. Either way, the northwest wall of the rancho’s historic main adobe was collapsing. The Rancho Camulos Museum board retained the services of an accredited structural engineer with experience in historic structures. The str...uctural engineer recommended an A-B-C slot foundation, where a new concrete foundation would be slipped under the wall in sections, one-third at a time. It was a costly proposition. The museum board went hat-in-hand to Wayne Crawford, president of Santa Clarita Concrete. Without hesitation, Wayne said yes to donating both the materials and the labor for the job. Erected over the course of a decade beginning in 1853, the hacienda-style adobe was home to Ygnacio and Ysabel del Valle, who owned approximately 48,000 acres of the Santa Clarita Valley at the time including the present communities of Newhall, Valencia, Saugus and parts of Canyon Country. Two decades later, the acreage was sold to Henry Mayo Newhall but the Del Valles retained the westernmost portion, which became the present Rancho Camulos. In 1884 the rancho was popularized by the Helen Hunt Jackson novel, Ramona, which sparked a wave of tourism and migration to sunny Southern California. The Del Valles sold their remaining landholdings in 1924 to a Swiss dairyman named August Rübel. His heirs own the property today. Still a working ranch, the 1,800-acre Rancho Camulos, with the nonprofit museum buildings in the middle, has been under the ownership of just two families for nearly two centuries. Visiting Rancho Camulos Museum is truly a step back to another time. For more information about Rancho Camulos Museum and to learn how you can join the museum’s active volunteer force, visit RanchoCamulos.org or call (805) 521-1501. The museum is located 10 miles west of Valencia on scenic Highway 126. See more

On her 93rd birthday (4/5/2021): Mentryville Memories from Carol Lagasse. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/carollagasse20210322.htm

https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3770.htm Southern Pacific Railroad Engine No. 1629 on the line during its working life. Photographic negative, 2x4 inches, with paper sleeve. Date and location unknown. Probably no later than 1947 after the railroad changed the lettering on tenders to "SOUTHERN PACIFIC" from "SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES," which had been the standard since 1916 (Cauthen & Signor 2019:11-13). (The official change was made in December 1946, but not everything was... repainted immediately.) One might think it's prior to November 1924, when weight designation lettering became standard on both sides of the forward portion of SP tenders (ibid.) the weight designation appears to be missing here ; however, the light has a hood, so it's during or after World War II. Hoods were added "as the need for blackouts spread from the Pacific Coast to points 150 miles inland" (Yenne 1985:101). No. 1629 passed within 150 miles of the coast and through the Santa Clarita Valley when it was used on the route between Yuma and Portland. Note that smokebox fronts also switched from black to aluminum paint after 1946 (Cauthen & Signor 2019:11); this one appears to be crusty aluminum, but it's hard to tell. In June 1957, actor Gene Autry purchased the retired locomotive and moved it to his Melody Ranch movie studio in Placerita Canyon. In 1981, Autry donated the 2-6-0 mogul locomotive to the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, which moved it in 1982 to the Heritage Junction section of William S. Hart Park in Newhall. Note that the locomotive has a different tender in the photograph than the one that came with it when Autry acquired it (i.e., the one it has today). According to SPRR historian Mike Jarel, tenders were assigned on the basis of the particular duty the locomotive was performing. The Arizona Daily Star provided some history in its August 1957 report on Autry's purchase: The old engine was built in 1900 by the Schenectady Locomotive Works, N.Y., and was put in service by the Southern Pacific in December of that year. It was retired from active duty about a year ago. Its last years were spent on the Tucson division. In 1946 it did a stretch on the Southern Pacific of Mexico. Loaded for a trip and under full head of steam, the old engine weighs 175,000 pounds. It has been used in both freight and passenger service but was too light for the heavier hauls. Its movie career began on the Tucson division, where it was loaned to several film companies for pictures of the old West. According to the report, No. 1629 appeared in approximately 20 movies made in Southern Arizona before 1957. Then, at Melody Ranch, it reportedly appeared in television series such as "Gunsmoke" and "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp."

MAR 12 in #SCVHistory: 1928 - St. Francis Dam collapses at 11:57:30 PM, killing an estimated 411 people from Saugus to the sea. America's deadliest civil engineering failure of the 20th Century. Stories & photos > http://ow.ly/TDRB30rAqWe

Local historians E. J. Stephens and Bill West provide a virtual tour of local film locations and sites. This program originally aired as part of the City of Santa Clarita’s Newhallywood Silent Film Festival in February 2021. This segment was produced by SCVTV.

St. Francis Dam Disaster Commemoration Event Friday, March 12, 4 p.m. Rancho Camulos National Historic Landmark Invites You to Attend a FREE Zoom Presentation (...link below) Rancho Camulos Museum is hosting a virtual presentation commemorating the March 12, 1928 St. Francis Dam Disaster with special guest panelists, Jon Wilkman, author of Floodpath (Amazon 2016 Book of the Year) and Ann Stansell, historical researcher and archeologist. Join us as we explore the story of the largest man-made disaster in California history: Its birth, its death, and its lasting impact on the Santa Clara River Valley. We will also highlight the Camulos connections within the compelling story and provide ample opportunity to answer questions from the audience. Advance questions may also be sent to [email protected]. Please put St. Francis Dam in the subject line. Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81513507400 Meeting ID: 815 1350 7400 Passcode: 835760 See more

Philip Scorza takes viewers on a historic and personal journey of perseverance and preservation on the Winkler homestead property in Castaic. Written & Hosted by Philip Scorza. Filmed 1999- 2020. Produced in 2021 Excerpt from Winkler Homestead Road: Past and Future Meet at Castaic High School:... Until Castaic High School was built, upper Romero Canyon looked about as rural as it did in 1920 when Norman Winkler filed for a homestead patent. Winkler, a World War I veteran who fought the Kaiser’s army at Verdun, built a 900-square-foot cabin on the property in 1921, raised chickens there and planted more than 200 eucalyptus, cedar and pine trees. The old homestead cabin where Marylynn grew up is gone it burned down in 1978 as are the family’s 350 acres, which they sold off over the decades. A second cabin built in 1962 is gone, too; it stood on the last remaining 4 acres when it burned down in a 2001 brushfire. Philip Scorza was at work at Canyon High School when he got word the brushfire was headed in his direction. The video production teacher had purchased the 4-acre property just four months earlier and lived in the cabin. He got home that night to find a smoldering ruin. Undeterred, Scorza rebuilt, and the historian in him went into overdrive. A longtime board member of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, Scorza researched his property and connected the dots to Marylynn Winkler Butters, whom he befriended and interviewed in 2014 for his SCVTV history show, Points of Interest. Not long after that, as the shiny new school began to take shape on newly flattened hills, Scorza came up with the idea of preserving a link to the past by naming the road in front of it for the Winklers. Specifically, for the Winkler homestead. Noting it would be the only street name around here with homestead in it, he figured the students could learn what a homestead was. Los Angeles County said sure, as long as the William S. Hart Union High School District and everybody else in town was OK with it. In time, Scorza gathered the support of the school district, the Castaic Area Town Council, other local organizations and neighboring property owners in Romero Canyon. Neighboring property owners is a bit of a misnomer. There’s really only Scorza, immediately north of the school. Just past him, Placerita Canyon resident Dave Weston owns the land that his great-grandfather Alvino Romero, the canyon’s namesake, homesteaded in 1912. Otherwise the school is rather secluded, at least until the economy bounces back and home construction starts anew. When campus life returns and someone asks, What’s a homestead? there’ll be a guest lecturer with answers just up the road. Further reading & watching: Winkler Homestead Road: Past and Future Meet at Castaic High School. Philip Scorza’s Points of Interest | Marylynn Winkler Butters

**Follow link for photos & video of the concrete pour 2020/2021 SCV Historical Society project leader Mike Jarel and muscular volunteer Manny Santana reinstal...l the crossbuck (railroad crossing sign) in front of the Saugus Train Station in the Heritage Junction section of William S. Hart Park in Newhall. The crossbuck was previously installed in the same location. A truck backed into it in the mid-2010s and broke it off at the base. This time, it has been mounted inside a giant steel beam that has been buried and cemented 5 feet into the ground and extends 3 feet above ground, acting as a bollard. The crossbuck saw use in Saugus near the original location of the Southern Pacific Railroad's 1888 Saugus Depot at Drayton Street and Bouquet Canyon Road. See more

https://www.nbclosangeles.com//forest-service-see/2516493/

Help the Forest Service Design a National Memorial - St. Francis Dam Disaster 2/1/2021 The United States Forest Service (USFS) is pleased to announce a competit...ion to secure design concepts for a memorial to honor the victims and memorialize the history of the Saint Francis Dam Disaster. The sponsor of the competition is the Angeles National Forest, in cooperation with the St Francis Dam National Memorial Foundation (SFDMF). This document presents the intentions and mission of the memorial, and also outlines the competition rules and provides information on how to submit memorial design ideas and concepts for consideration. On February 1, 2021, opportunities to submit ideas and design concepts will begin, and will remain open for for 90 days, closing on April 31, 2021. Once closed, the memorial design submittals will be analyzed by the Competition jury. The jury members will be 11 individuals composed of U.S Forest Service employees, St Francis Dam National Memorial Foundation members, family members of the disaster victims, and significant stakeholder entities (i.e. LADWP, SCE, Santa Clarita City Council, etc.).

1/26/2021: Guy "Daredevil" Horanberg at work at Heritage Junction. (Personally, I prefer to keep my feet on the ground.)

1/21/2021: Two "thank you's" -- to Don Cruikshank at AV Equipment Rentals for the loan of the reach machine (enormous forklift) that we used to move a few tons ...of bricks at Heritage Junction; and to Hart Park's Rachael Komulainen for relocating a tiny baby rattler that was hibernating in the middle of one of the pallets of bricks. Gotta watch where you stick your hands. Video by Guy Robert Horanberg. See more

** 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