Cover your horse’s ears, but we’re going to go back in time to when an animal rights group tried to get all the cows and horses in the valley to wear diapers. And The Signal was 100% on board.
Seeing that we always use horses on this Saturday morn adventure, keep those pony ears covered because there’s also a runaway wagon team to go corral.
There’s the execution of the valley’s only serial killer (known) and I shall never forgot our local judge’s damning ruling at the end of his trial, calling the monster, “a human wolf who preyed upon humanity since the age of 6.” That still gives me shivers. We’ve got rattlesnakes, our only legitimate presidential candidate and an epic stowaway adventure for two Mexican boys. C’mon. We’re burning daylight …
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
WHEN L.A. COUNTY WAS BIG. LIKE, REALLY BIG. — On Feb. 18, 1850, California was divided into the original 27 counties. Los Angeles County covered 35,000 square miles — or, about nine times its present gargantuan size. By 1910, the various counties were split and there were 58 counties.
FEBRUARY 22, 1925
STICK TO THE ROSARY, PADRE? — Before we had long-range weather forecasts, we had the local priest, Father Ricardo. He used to give detailed predictions for up to a month. The good Catholic shepherd noted that the Santa Clarita Valley would have a very wet February and March 100 years back. Hoping the good padre’s praying was better than his weather predicting. February of 1925 was pretty darn dry.
JUDGE PERKIE — Old A.B. Perkins wasn’t so old in 1925. He sure wore lots of hats though. Besides being a budding local historian, real estate agent and water baron, A.B. was sworn in as justice of the peace on this date by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
FEBRUARY 22, 1935
I’M GOING TO HAVE TO ASK SIGNAL EDITOR TIM WHYTE ABOUT THIS — We just don’t have these stories in the paper anymore. On this date, Eddie Balz’s team of horses ran away dragging a wagon on Newhall Avenue. Cowpoke Chuck Reed spotted the madly sprinting draft ponies and diverted them to a road less traveled. There were no injuries to horse or human.
UP SCHMIDT CREEK? — The famed Schmidt home had been leveled by fire. The Canyon Country ranchers rebuilt their home into a Spanish-style small mansion with steel rods reinforcing the adobe. The Schmidts owned the 6S Ranch, which had its own airport runway.
I SURELY HATE TO MENTION THIS FOR FEAR OF GETTING HIT, BUT — Business was booming for the Halifax Powder Co. They had opened their doors a year earlier to make TNT and other explosives. About 40 men were on the payroll in the mid-’30s. Many of them were used in the construction of many of America’s big projects, including Boulder Dam. Prior to that, another explosives company made ammunition for World War I. Prior to that, right around the turn of the 20th century, it was a simple TNT plant, owned by heavyweight champion of the world “Gentleman” Jim Corbett and his father. Today, you might know the bowl-shaped canyon as the home to the former Bermite Co. next to the Metrolink station on Soledad.
FEBRUARY 21, 1936
OUR FORGOTTEN & FAMOUS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE — He was one of the valley’s leading citizens for decades and a nationally renowned public figure. Henry Clay Needham came to the Santa Clarita in the late 19th century to build a Prohibitionist community on 10,000 acres of Newhall land. There weren’t too many takers for the strict lifestyle — even amongst the Prohibitionists. The hard-luck fellow once was butted by a Billy goat so hard he had to spend several months in bed. Needham would eventually run for the presidency three times on the Prohibitionist ticket (although the first time, he couldn’t accept his party’s nomination because he got food poisoning the morning of the convention). He would die on Feb. 21, 1936. You can still see remnants of his old ranch on Sierra Highway, up the road from Eternal Valley. It’s a business center today. There used to be a neat-looking stone arch walkway that was the entrance to his ranch. It would later become an exotic flora farm and major tourist attraction.
FEBRUARY 22, 1945
OUR DRONE ISSUE IN ANOTHER FORM — Folks on the Gilmour Ranch in Hasley Canyon were a bit shaken. Seems a kite with a large box attached to it landed in a pasture. This was the tail end of World War II. Ranchers thought it might be one of those bombs or incendiary devices the Japanese were launching all the way from Japan to land in the U.S. and start fires. It wasn’t. It was just a former weather balloon all the way from Oregon.
WAITING FOR THE DAY’S FIRST CHEESEBURGER? — Bob Pervin got drunk and randomly picked Mrs. Margaret Hampton’s big sedan in which to sleep it off. First, you didn’t mess with Margaret, who would run the long gone Snak Shak burgertorium on today’s Main Street. She couldn’t shake the boozer awake and called the cops. They carted Bobby off and the judge gave him 12.5 days in jail.
PARLEZ-VOUZ VILLAGE? — About THE top place to get into monkey business in this valley was the French Village. It had been around in various incarnations for decades, moving up and down San Fernando Road (today, Newhall Avenue and across from Starbucks). On this date, Ed Hill and Judge C.M. MacDougall (who also owned the Saugus Cafe before going into the Navy in World War II) bought the place and kept the popular owners, “Mom and “Pop” Poppelman, on as managers. They had owned the place for 14 years.
ROAD RASH CHiPS, 1945 — We didn’t have many California Highway Patrol officers to begin with in 1945. The local office was thinned by a count of four. All were motorcycle officers. Two took time off to cure “road rashes,” one wrecked a knee and the fourth had back spasms from riding in the cold.
FEBRUARY 22, 1955
THE ACCIDENTAL IMMIGRANTS — Two boys from Nogales, Mexico, survived a hellish ordeal. The lads were visiting an aunt in Tucson, Arizona, and were playing in a nearby train yard. They climbed into an empty freight car and were locked inside for four days. They stumbled out finally in Saugus and were literally crawling along San Fernando Road back home toward Nogales when a local woman spotted them, spoke to them in Spanish, took them home, fed them, washed them and fed them again. They were returned to happy parents in Mexico.
THE SCV’S ONLY — KNOWN — SERIAL KILLER — The SCV’s only known mass murderer, John Richard Jensen, was put to death in San Quentin’s gas chamber on this date. He was 29.
Less than two years earlier, he was arrested for the brutal kidnapping, sodomy and attempted murder of a hitchhiking Army sergeant in the unforgiving and frozen climes north of Castaic.
Jensen confessed to wandering the backroads of the SCV, picking up hitchhikers, mutilating them and sexually abusing them alive or sometimes dead. Jensen was arrested by local sheriff’s deputies on Oct. 3, 1953.
Jensen thought his victim, Sgt. Marion L. Piper, was dead. But the soldier managed to walk and crawl over a mile in the snow to the Sandberg resort on the upper Ridge Route. When the owners opened the back door, they were shocked to see the naked, blood-spattered Marine, begging for help. He had a bullet hole under his heart and multiple ax wounds to the head.
The little Newhall Courthouse was packed with the nation’s media for this gruesome case. At the defense table, Jensen thought he had beaten the rap. The smile waned from his face when sheriff’s deputies carried Piper, in full-dress military uniform and medals, into the courtroom on a stretcher.
There, Piper pointed at Jensen as his attacker. When he rendered his verdict, Judge C.M. MacDougall called Jensen “a human wolf who preyed upon humanity since the age of 6.” Six. Heavens, if that’s the right word. It came out afterward that he killed his first victim when he was 14 — a younger playmate — “in a most atrocious manner.” Jensen was in and out of prisons and mental institutions from 1939 to 1952.
Jensen wouldn’t have normally faced the death penalty except for something then called the California “Little Lindbergh” statute. Jensen’s remains were handled by his family through Hillburn’s Mortuary and I’m not sure if he’s in Eternal Valley or buried somewhere else.
FEBRUARY 22, 1965
19 EGOCENTRIC DUMBBELLS — On this date, 20 cars collided in a thick fog north of Castaic and 11 people were hospitalized. Seems like the last 19 were speeding and the first car wasn’t.
THE HORROR!! NAKED FARM ANIMALS! — The Newhall Land & Farming Co.’s “Moral Disaster” rating was lifted by SINA (the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals). SINA was actually a practical joke perpetrated by Signal Publisher Scott Newhall and actor Buck Henry. The pair passed themselves off as leading an anti-nudity-in-animals group of 55,000 members strong. SINA demanded Newhall Land start clothing all their naked cows and horses and even “airlifted” giant livestock diapers to NL&F. Scotty Newhall, a Newhall Land board member, was secretly behind the hoax to “clean up the urban slums of animal nudity” that was the SCV. Scott would then run a series of front-page stories and editorials on the hot topic.
FEBRUARY 22, 1975
SNAKES FOR THE MEMORIES — Rains and rising waters at Castaic Lake caused a rather unusual migration. Rattlesnakes were awakened from their hibernations because of the extra water. Boaters and anglers kept bumping into the poisonous fellows. Fortunately, no one was bitten.
SHAKE, RATTLE & ROLL — Here’s something comforting. Dr. Clarence Allen, professor of geology and geophysics at CalTech, noted that big dams can actually be responsible for earthquakes. Allen noted that dams in Africa, China and India had all caused quakes above 6.0 on the Richter Scale. The good prof noted it could happen at Castaic or Pyramid lakes.
EASY ED — A CalArts student film made it to the Plaza Theater. “The Nightrider” had scenes from the Saugus Cafe and other SCV locations. Star of the flick was a young student from the Valencia campus — Ed Harris. He even had hair back then. Ed would later earn four Academy Award nominations for acting.
FEBRUARY 22, 1985
SOME FOLKS WERE HAPPY. OTHERS? ’TWEREN’T. — A CHP surprise check randomly pulled over buses. Emptying out the passengers and drivers, the Highway Patrol then checked for safety violations — like hardly any brakes. They netted 71 violations.
MOTORCYCLES BEGONE — The popular motorcycle track, Indian Dunes (near where the Magic Mountain employee parking lot is today) closed its doors 40 years ago. One of the immediate offshoots was a dramatic increase in illegal dirt bike riding across the valley. The first Saturday, there were 40 complaints to local sheriff’s deputies.
• • •
Once again, surely appreciate the company on these trail rides through SCV time and monkey business. See you in seven with another exciting Time Ranger adventure, and, until then — vayan con Dios, amigos!
Local historian and the world’s most prolific satirist/humorist John Boston hosts an eclectic online shop, bookstore and multimedia & commentary website at johnlovesamerica.com.
