Top of the Santa Clarita Valley Saturday morning to you, saddlepals. We’ve a most excellent trail ride ahead, filled with adventure, breathtaking vistas and lots of gee whiz information.
There’s earthquakes, crooks, angels and the largest drug bust in SCV history.
Wait ’til you hear what kind of sentence the dealers were handed …
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
MOVING DAY — I’m betting a lot of newcomers will be amazed to learn that the town of Newhall was originally founded smack dab in the epicenter of Saugus, where the Saugus Café is today. That was in 1876. I’ve come across several reasons for the move, from a lack of water, or it was too windy, or too far from Beale’s Cut. Anywho. Just about everything that was nailed down was moved a couple miles south to near present-day 6th and Main streets. The move was completed on Feb. 15, 1878.
OUR NAKED HEALTH NUT BORAX TYCOON — Before the Civil War, borax was primarily imported and used for glass blowing and gold mining. There was a big find of the mineral north of San Francisco in 1856 and the Borax Co. of California was formed. It took eight years for them to start operations.
More uses for the mineral were found when industry started using it in the making of steel and iron.
A Francis “Borax” Smith found a huge deposit of the stuff in Nevada and, in just six years during the 1880s, he pulled out millions of pounds of the stuff. The mineral was carted to Mojave to railheads there by the soon-to-be-famous 20-mule teams (although some of them were as big as 60).
Smith founded the Pacific Borax Co. in 1890 and started buying up land and mineral rights.
One of Smith’s employees was a clerk in his Chicago office. Thomas Thorkidson quit his soft job and headed for California. Up the road, near Frazier Park, he discovered a big deposit of sodium tetraborate decahydrate.
Odd twist of fate, he hired his ex-boss, Steve Mather, to help mine it.
Meanwhile, two gold miners, up Tick Canyon, found a huge borax deposit. They quickly rode to Frazier Park and sold it to Thorkidson for $30,000.
In 1908, just north of present-day Davenport Road in Agua Dulce, Thorkidson formed the Sterling Borax Works and built a narrow-gauge train line that hauled ore 6 miles over to the Lang Station.
A small mining community of Sterling was founded and was operating into the 1920s.
Remember Steven Mather?
After he quit the mining business went on to become the first director of the National Park Service.
Thorkidson? He lived a playboy’s life, throwing lavish parties. A story was told he was so proud of his physique, at a black tie dinner, he stripped completely nude to show it to the ladies. He died, penniless, at 81 in a nursing home in La Crescenta in 1950.
OUR MOSTLY NOT-NAKED TILE ROOF TYCOON — Most of us at some time during the week drive on the parkway that bears his name. On Feb. 11, 1879, the most influential person of the 20th century in the SCV was born in San Francisco. Atholl McBean was related by marriage to the Newhall family. He would end up saving The Newhall Land & Farming Co. from bankruptcy. He also kept the huge holdings together and began the vision of creating the planned urban community so many live in today.
Besides being CEO of Newhall Land, McBean had an impressive resume. He was president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, director of Pacific Telephone and board member of Crocker Citizens Bank, Pacific Mutual, Standard Oil, a tile roofing zillionaire and other endeavors.
After Newhall Land was devastated by the great St. Francis Dam disaster and then by the Great Depression, at 51, McBean took over the company and turned it around.
It was in 1946 when McBean started studying the primarily ranch land in the SCV with an eye to develop it into a future suburbia. His business philosophy was to find the right person for the right job.
FEBRUARY 15, 1925
OUR LONG FORGOTTEN MOUNTAIN RESORT — Frank Lambert and William Rose ran the popular resort, the Forest Inn, on the old Ridge Route. They ran the place with their wives and had their best year ever, only to lose their lease in early 1925. The Courtemanches, original owners of the F.I., took back running the inn and garage.
OUR NEIGHBOR, SANTA BARBARA — Paperwork began moving the Saugus part of the woods into the Angeles National Forest. It was part of the Santa Barbara National Forest before that.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS? A NUTTY COWBOY — Religious fanatic and cowboy Peter Kasteain tried to take his life with a razor on the old Platz Ranch in Ravenna. Seems Pete felt the end of the world was a few minutes away and he had to get ready for it. Nearly succeeded, too. A couple of minutes shy of midnight, a fellow bunkmate saved his life.
FEBRUARY 15, 1935
PAYS TO ADVERTISE — Here’s one of my all-time classified ads to ever appear in The Mighty Signal: “GOLD: Come to beautiful texas (sic) canyon, and learn the whys and the wherefores of Placer Gold. A miner of 30-years-experience will show you. A small charge will be made, to keep beans in the pot, and sour dough in the pan. ‘Kzn’ Rte 1, Box 110, Saugus.”
FEBRUARY 14, 1939
ONE HOT SCHOOL — On Valentine’s Day, 1939, Newhall Elementary burned to the ground. Again. For the third time.
FEBRUARY 15, 1945
THE TREACHEROUS HILLS OF SANTA CLARITA — Yet another plane crashed in the rugged terrain of the Santa Clarita. The plane went down about 20 miles north of Newhall. An armada of 37 planes scanned the hills for wreckage. Eight people were on board the Marine R5C Curtis Commando transport.
FEBRUARY 15, 1955
A LONG-FORGOTTEN TEACHER & HERO — On this date, L.C. Dalbey, “The Father of Hart High,” died. Starting in 1930, he was principal of Newhall Elementary for 16 years and Hart’s first superintendent. Prior to 1945, the Santa Clarita Valley was under the umbrella of the all-powerful L.A. Unified School District. For years, local citizens had wanted to build their own high school in the valley and the LAUSD kept nixing the idea. It was Dalbey who found a loophole in the state school code that allowed this valley to break away from the tentacles of downtown Los Angeles.
Hart High was founded in 1945 and its first campus was set in temporary quarters on Newhall Elementary. Dalbey was principal for both schools. It was Dalbey who spearheaded the construction of the Hart campus, in a post-war period when supplies were scarce. He started the adult school program and started a movement — in the 1940s — to build the valley’s first junior college.
He resigned, under controversy over some building contracts, in 1950. His resignation was sudden and Dalbey didn’t even wait for the various accolades the community was about to shower upon him and quickly left the valley he had loved and served for 20 years. He became a Realtor.
Dalbey died of pneumonia at the age of 64. The street that separates Placerita Junior High and Newhall Park still bears his name today.
FEBRUARY 15, 1965
TOO MANY KIDS. NOT ENOUGH SCHOOLS. — Forty years ago, the William S. Hart Union High School District predicted a dire population explosion for its two junior highs and high school. They expected the population to swell to 3,800 students by 1966. In 1965, the three schools had 2,535 combined kids. You can blame the developers. You can blame the politicians. You can blame the parents for moving here. But the problem was that 2,869 homes would be built in the valley in 1965.
FEBRUARY 15, 1975
AHHH, THOSE COURTS OF OURS — On this date, local drug dealers were convicted in the largest bust to that date in SCV history. An estimated 300,000 pills were seized from a Canyon Country home. Both the dealers got five years’ probation and three months at Wayside Honor Rancho. Obviously, arresting officers and the D.A. were livid, especially due to the pushers’ rap sheet. Judge William Rosenthal disregarded recommendations from the Probation Department and handed out the light sentences, noting: “I just give it my best shot.”
SPEAKING OF LIGHT SENTENCES — Standard Oil and Newhall Refinery got off with a slap on the wrist. Gobs of oil poured out from the petroleum center and ran down Newhall and Placerita creeks. Maybe that’s why the water runs so fast through there.
FEBRUARY 15, 1985
THE WORST NIGHTMARE OF EVERY PARENT — A man who earned the name of the Snapshot Stranger returned and was spotted around a local elementary school. The Stranger had originally been spotted talking to a young boy on his front lawn. He took the child’s picture, but then ran away when the boy’s mother came out of the house. He was later seen hanging around Meadows School. It’s so hard to fathom, but there are rings of perverts who publish photo books of kidnapped children. The children are later sold.
HEY HON. GOING OUT FOR A LITTLE WALK. — Rob Sweetgall was walking through Castaic and stopped by the school to talk with 300 students. What made this unusual was the 37-year-old New Yorker was 11,600 miles into a hike around the perimeter of the United States.
Sweetgall quit his job of 12 years as a chemical engineer after his father died of heart disease. He did it to raise awareness of physical fitness. Sweetgall figured that he averaged 35 miles a day and burned 4,000 calories. He was sponsored by Rockport shoes, Gore-Tex waterproof fabrics and the University of Massachusetts.
He carried a 4-pound fanny pack, which included a toothbrush, maps, blister ointment, socks and mittens. The walker never planned where he slept and often it was in something like an all-night laundromat, pizza parlor, newsroom or jail cell. Some nights, “I might knock on a rancher’s door and say, ‘Hi. I’m Rob Sweetgall, the gentleman walking around America. Can I sleep here?’”
One more amazing tidbit. He wore special shoes from Rockport that cost $1,500. Well. They didn’t cost Sweetgall anything. In today’s prices? Those Rockports would have cost $2,800 …
• • •
You folks are good medicine and I surely appreciate the companionship. Look forward to another trail ride through SCV history with you Santa Claritans. Until next Sunday — vayan con Dios, amigos!
Local historian and the world’s most prolific satirist/humorist John Boston hosts an eclectic online store, book shop and multimedia & commentary website at johnlovesamerica.com.
