Smiling at all you saddlepals. In some, I see a smidge of stress. Beating against ears and souls, the insistent march of the imagined obligation of the holidays.
What say we sneak out for less than a second (benefit of time traveling) of trail riding into the mystic? Pay a visit to less complicated times and uncrowded vistas?
Got the perfect solution. Take a deep breath, grab a jacket (and some pants, for those of you who have trouble filling in the blanks) and let’s mosey through the bucolic, sad and sometimes hilarious back canyons of local history …
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
THE BIG A’S. THREE OF ’EM — It’s rather mind-boggling just how powerful the Southern California Automobile Club was at the turn of the 20th century. Long before there was a Department of Motor Vehicles, AAA was in charge of registering cars and issuing drivers’ licenses. (In fact, AAA lobbied that immigrants to this country should first have to pass a driving test before they could become a citizen!) Besides offering where a great Sunday drive might be in their magazine (they used to suggest the various canyons up here) Auto Club was also in charge of putting up things like lights, road signs and setting speed limits. They’d visit the SCV here to start around the first of the year, set up a table at a local welding shop/garage and registered EVERYBODY’S car in the valley. Well. Those who didn’t play hooky. The Automobile Club of Southern California was founded on Dec. 13, 1900.
BUYING YOUR SCV HOME FROM THE RAILROAD — A lot of you veteran history riders recall that a company called Western Development was formed to develop Newhall into a community back in 1876. A little trivia. WD was a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
MARCHING THE PIGS TO VENTURA — Old-timer Clarence Swanson recalled being a boy, growing up in Castaic. He used to help his dad run hogs from here to Santa Paula. It took about three days along the bends of the Santa Clara River. Swanson recalled the river used to run year-round and, at its lowest, it was knee deep on a full-grown man. In those tougher times, Swanson started construction work at 14, digging petroleum lines through the valley. He also helped build the Ridge Route and recalled that much of the work was done with mules.
DECEMBER 14, 1924
POOR FRED PROBABLY GOT A BEVY OF ‘BIG DEAL’ JOKES — Fred Deal was the absentee manager of the telephone company here. Locals quipped that one reason why Fred didn’t show up here often was because he kept getting pestered. Citizens wanted Fred to OK expenditures to extend telephone service to 16 hours a day instead of eight (and none on weekends).
DECEMBER 14, 1934
BYE-BYE BILL — On this date, pioneer William Mayo Newhall died. He was 80. William was president of The Newhall Land & Farming Co., president of the Stanford board of trustees, and, of course, one of the five sons of town founder Henry Mayo Newhall. As I sometimes like to point out, if Bill would have lived, he would been 170 today.
WET & MISERABLE — I remember years ago reading about the Army and Navy soldiers stationed here over the years. December would roll around and they didn’t know how to dress. It could be snowing or flirting with 100. Back on this week in 1934? It was an unusual month of cold and rain.
DECEMBER 14, 1944
HART, INDIANS & SANTA CLARITA — The name “Santa Clarita” has been popular for decades here. It came into prominence in the 1930s and was bandied about by locals. For a short time, the working handle of the proposed William S. Hart Union High School District was both the Little Santa Clara district and Santa Clarita. After all the state paperwork was passed, board members quickly visited an aging Two-Gun Bill, our local superstar of the silent era, and asked him if they could name the district after him. Bill said, “Yup.” He also asked if the Hart High mascot could be the Indian. Hope there’s a medicine man somewhere to bother recent woke Hart trustees who changed the name.
WHEN A SIX-PACK WAS 3 GALLONS — Judge William Kennedy failed miserably at keeping a straight face on this one. A man was up on drunk driving charges and tried to use the fairly new Auto Club “Drunk-O-Meter” as his defense. The 502 suspect swore he only had two bottles of beer the entire evening before he was pulled over. Judge Kennedy asked: “How big were the bottles?” Seems they were both of the half-gallon size.
THE SHERIFF’S ATOMIC DRUNK MACHINE — I’m betting our pals in law enforcement would get a kick out of this one. This one actually happened a few months earlier than December of ’44, but I just heard about it. In another drunk driving arrest, the Newhall sheriff couldn’t get the imbiber to confess to how many drinks he consumed. The cocky drunk kept declaring himself sober and even volunteered to take a lie detector test. In 1944 Newhall, there weren’t too many (0) lie detectors hanging around the 6th Street sheriff’s office. But in the storage room next door, they had a complicated-looking permanent wave machine recovered from a beauty shop burglary. Sheriff Stewart “connected” the hair curling machine to the drunk and pretended to turn knobs while asking questions. Whenever His Tipsiness was suspected of telling a lie, Stewart would turn on the machine and it would start to frightfully rattle and hiss. After a couple of minutes, the flustered drunk confessed to a major bender.
THE GREAT WORLD WAR COMES HOME TO NEWHALL — Surely wish it weren’t so, but war is a part of the human condition. Like communities everywhere, the Santa Clarita sent many a good man to battle throughout World War II. In the final days of the conflict, there was a huge battle to seize a Japanese B-29 base in Saipan. Newhall’s PFC Joe Olivera was in a Jeep with five other soldiers when it was hit directly by a mortar round. All five of his buddies were killed. Joe lost a foot.
JOHN WAYNE WARMING THE MOVIE CAMERAS BY CAMPFIRE — Locals didn’t know it at the time, but they were watching what would later be known as a classic. On this date, the little and semi-brand-spanking new American Theatre was showing “Stagecoach.” It would be hailed as one of the best Westerns of all time and marked the turning point of John Wayne as a box office star. The Duke, by the way, shot many a Western out here in Santa Clarita. He recalled filming one oater out in Placerita Canyon. He and the crew were awake before one particularly cold dawn and the photographers used to have to warm up their cameras — next to the campfire. No fooling.
LONG BEFORE MOVIES ON CELLPHONES — Entertainment was entirely different 80 years back. It was big news when the local Walter Cook family drove all the way to Los Angeles to sit in a radio audience for the “Dagwood and Blondie” live broadcast.
DECEMBER 14, 1954
WHAT DOES A POLE CLIMBER DO WHEN THERE’S NO POLE TO CLIMB? — Several Pacific Telephone pole climbers found themselves the victims of modernization. The utility was stringing a new line of phone wires through the valley. Locals were wowed at how they were doing it — with helicopters. Of course, not all the poles were strung thusly. “Operation Skyhook,” as it was called, was used primarily for hooking up lines in some of our more extreme back canyons.
NOT THE BRIGHTEST OF IDEAS TO BUM A RIDE FROM A GUY WITH A “HEY! WE’RE THE COPS!!” LOGO ON BOTH DOORS — Things weren’t going well for Frank Nemcek. He had just escaped from Wayside Honor Rancho (today, the big house at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic) and was thumbing a ride on old Highway 99. Nemcek was still wearing his prison uniform and, just his dumb luck, Walt Doughty pulled over to give him a lift. Nemcek hopped in and said: “You’re taking a chance picking me up. I’m running away from that place.” Doughty was equally honest, noting that while Nemcek was in uniform, he was out of uniform. Doughty was an off-duty sheriff’s deputy who just happened to be driving by. He gave Nemcek a lift back to the pokey. Hm. Wonder if Deputy Doughty filed for overtime?
REMEMBER BEER IN BROWN BOTTLES? — Funny how trends can affect a local economy. One of the valley’s biggest employers, Thatcher Glass, had to lay off several workers in their big bottle-making plant. The demand for brown glass beer bottles had fallen. Thatcher was retooling for things like clear glass bottles for ketchup, vinegar and such.
DECEMBER 14, 1964
KA-BUH-BUH-BUH-BLOOEY!!! — The old Newhall Refinery used to be at the east end of town by the east edge of the Hart Ranch and folks were more than happy when it moved in the 1920s to the outskirts near Beale’s Cut. The major reason for the joy was everyone was pretty much afraid the place would blow up. And it did, several times. On this date, 60 years back, the petroleum plant caught on fire. Again. Workers cutting pipe ignited gas fumes and sent flames leaping high into the air. Fortunately, the fire was quickly contained and no one was hurt.
DECEMBER 14, 1974
WHEN WE ALMOST HOSTED THE WORLD’S FAIR — Pico Canyon is one of the world’s leaders in the Maybe Department. Over the years, there have been many plans involving the area where Walmart and Stevenson Ranch sit today. We’ve talked about putting both a horse track and a greyhound racing facility there, along with building a stadium for the Raiders. On this date, the site was considered as one of the prime spots to hold the 1980 World’s Fair. The county Board of Supervisors was up on the idea, too. Guess you heard. If you think Pico Canyon was an odd location for the 1980 World’s Fair, don’t laugh. They ended up holding it in Knoxville. That’d be the one in Tennessee.
SHOULD SEE THE SITUATION TODAY, GENERAL — On this date — 50 long years ago — California Attorney General William Saxbe announced that the Golden State was in the midst of an illegal alien crisis. Saxbe said that if something wasn’t done to either close the border to Mexico or tighten immigration enforcement, the state, and country, would be overloaded with illegals. Saxbe’s call to round up and deport 1 million illegal aliens (in 1975 alone), most of them Mexican, drew a harsh response from state and local Hispanic representatives.
STAY AWAY FROM GEORGE’S PLACE — If you were a crook, you didn’t want to pay a visit to George Ross’ house. The Saugus man was an international pistol marksman champion.
DECEMBER 14, 1984
HOW ABOUT THEM COWBOYS? — The Cowboy dynasty continued to collect heads and roll over vast expanses of football territory. On this date, they won their second consecutive CIF title, beating up on Santa Maria, 33-6. The ’boys would end up with a win streak that covered an amazing 46 games.
UNSCHEDULED AND MASSIVE CHRISTMAS TREE DELIVERY — One place mothers told their daughters never, ever to go near in 1984 was the Country Girl beer bar in Castaic. It kinda had a reputation as a bucket of blood back then. On this date, the little bar got an industrial dose of holiday spirit. A teamster had parked his double rig across the street. While the truck was running, he was atop, trying to readjust his cargo — several tons of Christmas trees. Somehow, the truck got engaged and started rolling forward. The driver bailed from on top and the truck slammed into the CG, taking out the entire front of the place. Christmas miracle, no one was hurt.
WELL THAT’S ONE WAY TO COOK RABBIT — Here’s another bizarre one. A rabbit caused a massive power shortage in Canyon Country. Don’t blame it on our friends in Woodlands. Witnesses saw a hawk soaring high above, carrying his dinner. The bird of prey dropped the bunny. It landed on the high-tension lines and caused the blow-out. Guess the hawk wanted his dinner cooked.
• • •
Here we are, back to the wonderful here-&-now. I remember several years back, I was in a grocery store and wished the clerk a Merry Christmas. He snapped at me like I had said his mother owned no shoes. Wishing those of you who celebrate a most Merry Christmas and for those who don’t? Yay for you and much peace and happiness. See you next weekend here at The Mighty Signal hitching post with another exciting Time Ranger adventure. Until then? “¡Vayan con Dios, amigos!”
Local historian and the world’s most prolific satirist/humorist just launched his multimedia website and eclectic online store, johnlovesamerica.com. Check it out! Tell others. Buy stuff, like — JB’s two-volume set of “MONSTERS” on local horror and macabre …
