Howdy, dear friends and saddlepals. We’ve a most interesting trail ride ahead through the back canyons and ridges of Santa Clarita history.
There’s gold discoveries and the usual swarthy criminals. We’ve got little Hart High going to the CIF Playoffs and you couldn’t tell it today, but we used to have more cows than any other place in America.
C’mon. With a minimum of groans, throw that leg over the saddle. Don’t spill your lattes on the horse. Let’s go mosey into yesteryear of one of America’s most interesting communities …
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
NOW THAT’S A HECK OF A BIRTHDAY!! — March 9 was a pretty good day for Franciso Lopez. He was born on this date in 1809 at Mission San Gabriel. On his 40th birthday, he found a few gold nuggets while onion hunting for his birthday salad. That discovery helped launch a major gold rush in the Santa Clarita Valley in 1842.
Lopez was wrongly credited for making the first gold strike in California in 1842 (monks and Indian miners were reportedly pulling gold out of the Lost Padre Mine in the Castaic/Lake Hughes area as early as 1797).
Still, Francisco Lopez’s discovery of gold sticking to a wild onion at the base of an oak tree is the stuff of legend and a state historical landmark at Placerita Canyon Nature Center. It was a good year for Don Francisco.
Back on June 9, 1842, the governor of California gave Francisco Lopez the Rancho Temescal for his kind gift of making the first OFFICIAL and documented gold discovery but more so, for handing it over to the governor. On Oct. 2, 1843, he was granted the Rancho Los Alamos by the governor. How’s that for early Republican welfare? Two huge estates, for being the governor’s pal?
Francisco Lopez was credited with the first discovery of gold in the valley. But old Spanish records indicate he was joined by two friends in the discovery — Manuel Cota and Domingo Bermudez. While they were on the original petition to the governor of California, Lopez and a fourth gentleman (sorry, can’t find his name yet!) were on the grant. Cota and Bermudez were the forgotten prospectors of SCV history.
JUST WHEN WAS CALIFORNIA’S FIRST GOLD STRIKE? — We keep adjusting our calendars about the first discovery of gold in California and Santa Clarita. For years, the date of the first major gold strike was thought to be in 1842 in Placerita Canyon by Don Francisco Lopez. Other reports place that date even earlier in San Francisquito Canyon in the 1820s.
In a conversation with The Signal by Judge John Powell, who served as magistrate here for 50 years in the 19th and early 20th centuries, that first gold discovery was even earlier. According to Powell, from a conversation he reportedly had with Andres Pico (of Pico Canyon fame and brother to California governor Pio Pico), Piute Indians found large gold nuggets in the Placerita Creek all the way back in 1796. The exact location was described as, “… in the bedrock of the narrows in Placerita Canyon, 4 miles from (what would be later downtown Newhall).”
The Indians brought them to the padres at the brand new construction site of the San Fernando Mission. The missionaries built rockers and sluice boxes and mined the gold. According to The Signal of Nov. 19, 1920,
“No one seems to know just how much gold was mined, but it is supposed to have been a considerable sum.”
Actually — that was probably the Lost Padre or Lost Horse Mine, in Castaic, which would be lost and found several times since 1796.
MARCH 8, 1925
ALWAYS PAYS TO HAVE A SECOND RABBIT HOLE — Before he was owner, editor and publisher of The Mighty Signal, A.B. Thatcher ran the Newhall Feed Store.
HERE’S A GREAT ROARING ’20s BAND NAME FOR YOU! —The Hollywegians. They were a popular dance band that played on KFI radio. They also performed live at the old Hapaland Hall, which used to sit where the Old Courthouse office building is on Market Street today. Small note: the band leader of The Hollywegians was actually a San Francisquitoegian. He lived in Saugus.
MARCH 8, 1935
FORTUNES WERE MADE IN CASTAIC DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION — The gold rush of the 1930s continued to spread throughout the canyons here. Four businessmen put up $10,000 for some newfangled centrifugal force placers installed by the creek at the Dunn Ranch in Castaic. Today, that’s the Pitchess pokey.
SPEAKING OF GOLD — You’ll remember that March 9, 1842, was the big anniversary when Don Francisco Lopez discovered those gold nuggets. The locals celebrated with a fiesta at the Walker Ranch in Placerita Canyon. They also had an outdoor mass celebration said by Father Joseph Thompson, who was a descendent of a local Spanish family of the early 19th century.
MARCH 8, 1945
AND THEY SAY CRIME DOESN’T PAY — First Class Machinist’s Mate Bill Wojciechowski was kidnapped in Los Angeles, driven to Castaic and robbed of $8, then let go. You think the kidnappers could have saved themselves a ride out to the country.
OLD-TIME HIGH LIVING — Next to the Hart Mansion, on Eighth Street, the house of Dr. Bill Ross was perhaps the nicest in Newhall. On this date, he sold it to Joe Towle. Interestingly, some of the old-timers still call the Arcadia mansion Dr. Ross’ House. It’s on my Top 5 List of great SCV Houses.
MARCH 8, 1955
INDIAN GRIDIRON HISTORY — While Hart made its epic march to the CIF Finals, 70 years back this week, the Indians went to the big dance for the first time in the school’s history. They beat a much larger Burbank school in the first round, 62-49. They lost to Mt. Carmel in the second stanza. Back then, CIF wasn’t divided into divisions. It was made up of league champs, no matter what the size of school. Future Minnesota Vikings quarterback Joe Kapp played on that 1955 Hart squad.
COWTOWN — Can’t say this is true anymore, but 70 years back, Los Angeles had the largest cow population of any county in America. Get this. Of all the land in L.A. County, only 1.5% was reserved for agriculture. Still, With its 600 dairies and 120,000 milk cows, L.A. County produced enough milk to supply 85% of the 4.5 million residents with at least one glass daily. In dollars and cents, dairy was bigger than citrus, poultry, vegetables and flowers — COMBINED.
MARCH 8, 1965
HOW’D YOU LIKE THAT AS YOUR HOME ADDRESS? — On this date, community leaders met with various politicians and highway mucky-mucks to discuss widening what was called, “The Highway of Death.” The state had turned Sierra Highway into a nightmarish thoroughfare. There was one stretch where the road dipped and rose between two very steep hills — with a common passing lane in the middle. It was the scene of several horrific accidents. The state wanted to make it a four-lane road. Eventually they did. But, they also built Highway 14 to bypass it as the main artery.
MARCH 8, 1975
NO RELATION TO TWO-GUN BILL THOUGH — Michigan Sen. Phil Hart’s son was hurt in a car accident. His companion in the car, Richard Caro, died in the Newhall Avenue accident. James Hart was attending CalArts at the time. His father, Phil, was famous for being “The Soul of the Senate” and up to present time, many buildings are named after the Democrat.
I WON’T IF YOU WON’T — Here’s a promise we could use more from politicians. Sheriff Peter Pitchess promised he’d resign from office if Baxter Ward would, too, and if Ward would never run for office again. The two had been feuding for several months over a variety of charges. Ward accused Pitchess of using the sheriff’s helicopter for his personal use. (Which reminds me. If the sheriffs aren’t using their helicopter this weekend, I’ve got a ton of weeds in the back nine that need spraying.)
EL JEFE de CHEESEBURGER — On this date, Carl Karcher was in Newhall, munching a burger. The billionaire was on hand for the grand opening of his Lyons Avenue Carl’s Jr. franchise. It’s still there on the corner of Valley and Lyons.
WHEN THE WORLD EXPO WAS ALMOST STAGED HERE — The move to bring the World Expo to what would later be Stevenson Ranch was met with anger by some residents. A few hundred locals protested the epic Expo ’81. While the fair would have been an economic gold mine for many local businesses, it would have been a congestion nightmare, bringing between 20 and 50 million people to the SCV over a six-month period.
MARCH 8, 1985
THE SUPER FAMOUS AT THE HAPPY HUMP — How’s this for a completely weird time-continuum tie: On this date, 40 years back, Michael Jackson, the eee-hee super pop star, was at Magic Mountain. Jackson made a surprise visit to the Valencia amusement park. His companion for the day was young Sean Lennon, son of Beatle John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
KAH AND BLOOEY!!! — About 150 pounds of a magnesium-based component for making high-powered military ammunition exploded at Bermite. Seems it was drying in the sun on a wooden pallet out back at the Soledad Canyon munitions factory.
JUST WEARING AWAY — Storms, erosion and just plain time wore at the old Southern Pacific train tracks running from Saugus to the Pacific. From Bouquet Canyon to Piru, there were only a few miles of tracks left intact. The Newhall Land & Farming Co. bought the property from “Espee” and kept the tracks. Why? One of The Farm’s — pardon the pun — side tracks — was using their property for movie and TV filming.
• • •
From that spinning time vortex ball ahead, looks like we’ve come back to the Santa Clarita of the here and now. Thanks for the good company, amigos and amigo-ettes. See you back here at The Mighty Signal hitching post 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.
