A Message from The Signal
On Feb. 7, 1919, Newhall was a small town of just 500 souls, in a valley where the cattle outnumbered the humans. And, on that day, for the first time, that small town had a newspaper — a small weekly with a circulation of 250 called The Newhall Signal. A one-year subscription cost $2.
Fresh on the heels of World War I, the first edition published by veteran and Signal founder Ed Brown, along with his wife, Blanche, contained the news tidbits of a small town in that era:
“Mr. Bricker, of the Bricker Grocery, was in San Fernando on Monday. He is kept quite busy with his truck business.”
“Mr. Bucknell, manager of the Newhall Lumber Co., and family, spent Sunday in Los Angeles with friends and relatives.”
And this: “Mr. R.C. Gibson, of Happy Valley and proprietor of ‘Eggland,’ informs us that he is enlarging his hen houses so as to be able to run 1,500 laying White Leghorn hens. He believes in the best, that is the reason he has White Leghorns.”
We believe in the best, too. And that’s why, today, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Signal, we are so proud to serve this community we call home.
(The Signal has also set up a page to celebrate its 100-year history. Click here to visit.)
Much has changed here since Feb. 7, 1919. From its humble beginning, soon the newspaper became an integral part of the community. In the years that would follow, The Signal would grow and evolve just as the community it served would grow and evolve — a century later, now numbering more than 300,000 souls, and a lot fewer cattle. The Signal has become the newspaper of record covering the news, the history and the growth of the Santa Clarita Valley for 100 years.
The newspaper has chronicled a rather colorful history with its share of characters and stories ranging from the tragic to the humorous to the outlandish. We commemorated the newspaper’s 100th anniversary, with a special “A” section that includes a look back at a sampling of some of the stories that shaped our newspaper and our community over the past 100 years. From the St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928, to Sept. 11, 2001, and much in between — we show these stories as they originally appeared in print, and we’ve also transcribed them, word for word, so you can read them as a Signal reader might have done many years ago.
We hope you enjoy the look back. And, we thank you, our readers, as well as our advertisers, our community’s leaders who make the Santa Clarita Valley so special, and all of the staff members and journalists who, for the past 100 years and continuing into The Signal’s second century, have created such a unique and lasting connection between this newspaper and the community we are honored and humbled to serve.
Our mission for 2019 is simple: To celebrate The Signal’s centennial while doing what the paper has always done — covering the news of the Santa Clarita Valley with heart, passion and a strong sense of community.
