Wakey-wakey, you SCV bunk-huggers. We’ve got thousands of trail riders to roust from the bunks. Let’s get moving so we’re all in the saddle by at least June.
This morning, we’ve a most entertaining and compelling trail ride ahead, what with motorcycle gang murders, livestock rustlers, movie stars and one bare minimum baseball team.
We’ve also got the valley’s first test tube baby and a listing of just how much time you’ve got if one of our two major dams breaks.
C’mon.
Saddle up.
And bring your scuba gear …
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
HALCYON TIMES — Life certainly was different turn of the 20th century. The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year. Burger flippers can make that in a long day’s wages today and are we any happier?
HAIR’S LOOKING AT YOU — Most women 12 decades back only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo. My head just itches thinking about that.
AND NO TRAFFIC JAMS — Turn of the 20th century, there were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. (zero in the SCV) and only 144 miles of paved roads (definitely zero in the SCV). The maximum speed limit in Downtown Newhall was 10 mph.
THROUGH ROSE-COLORED GLASSES — We talk about the good old days, but sometimes, our memory can be a bit foggy. George Campton, son of the original Campton store builder, recalled that in Newhall’s early days, it was a tough frontier town and a woman wasn’t safe to walk the streets after dark
ONE LAST NON-NOSTALGIC LOOK — The average life expectancy in America at the turn of the 20th century was 47 years. Heck. I’d be dead 28 years now.
THE EPIC SHAKE UP NORTH — April 18 marked the 119th anniversary of the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the worst disaster in state history. (Our own St. Francis Dam breaking was No. 2). The official death toll was put at around 3,000, but there are stories that authorities deflated the actual figures and that tens of thousands may have perished in the disaster. The conspiracy people point out that government officials all the way back to Washington didn’t want any bad publicity for San Francisco hosting the upcoming World’s Fair.
OUR LOCAL CONNECTION TO THE SF QUAKE & FIRE — Local pioneer Charles Kingsbury was a firefighter at the time in San Francisco. Kingsbury fought flames for four days straight. In one building about to go down, a woman asked him to rescue her box of jewels. He nearly died retrieving it. As a reward, she gave him one of her diamond rings. He had it reset and lost the stone during a boxing match.
IT’S TOUSLEY, NOT TOWSLEY — Time has a way of changing things, including names. There’s still a Towsley Canyon, which is now a state park. It was named after oilman Darius Tousley. Unfortunately, officials put a “W” where a “U” should have been and the error has stuck. The San Fernando Petroleum Mining District was formed in 1865 and with them some forgotten names of Leaming and DeWitt canyons.
APRIL 26, 1925
JAYWALK & IT’LL COST YOU A HOUSE — I’m always amazed at the stiffness of some fines compared to what a buck would buy in the 1920s and ’30s. Again, using a model of an average 1925 house costing $500 (TOTAL!), two imbibers who ran afoul of the law were hammered with big fines. Bootlegger S. Garcia was nailed with a $300 penalty for making gin on his Lang ranch and L.J. Fountain was slapped with a $250 ticket for driving drunk. Remember. This was during Prohibition. If the relative values stayed the same, if Mr. Fountain were ticketed in 2025, it would cost him about $400,000 …
THORNTON! THORNTON! THORNTON! — I’ve oft lobbied for former Signal editor, forest ranger, volunteer sheriff, pistol fighter and poet Thornton Doelle to be enshrined into our Western Walk of Stars. He was definitely the first to immortalize the valley in his sonnets. A hopeless romantic, he penned a tribute to a “wild” woman of the Santa Clarita entitled: “A Certain Flapper.” A little trivia. Thornton’s sometimes pen name? Bob. Bob Doelle.
LONG BEFORE THERE WAS A WHOLE FOODS — It’s amazing what a small town we were with our 500 or so scattered souls. Folks were grinning and gossiping about the package W.W. Penherwood received from friends living in Palm Beach. Old W.W. picked up a box with three carefully wrapped coconuts, picked off a Florida tree.
APRIL 26, 1935
KEEP YOUR MITTS TO YOURSELVES — Newhall had sort of a de facto baseball strike. Our Wildcats squad had trouble fielding a quorum. So, they had to cancel the game with The Electro, from Burbank. Back in the old days, folks stretched everything. The inventory of the squad included: “On hand — one new ball, five old bats, breast protector, shin guards, catcher’s glove and mask, three canvas bags.” The team had a treasury of $4.84.
CAT’S MEOW — Slow darn week for news, during the Depression. One of the lead stories of The Mighty Signal was about Mildred Story’s cat, Blinky. Blinky had seven claws on seven toes and gave birth to seven kittens, four of whom had seven claws on seven toes. Betcha Blinky could hang out on the ceiling all day without — well. Blinking.
APRIL 26, 1945
ADIOS & ADIEU — With the rest of the country, the little Santa Clara River Valley was stunned at the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Silent film star William S. Hart had called The Signal when the news was announced on the radio. Hart said he had a premonition the commander in chief was going to die. The town shut down for the day. Flags were flown at half-mast and services were held in every church and meeting hall.
THE LONG AGO DAYS OF ROAD KILL — Deer, horses and cattle are things most of us don’t even think about in the course of wandering about the valley on our appointed rounds. But this being rural country 80 years ago, folks had to watch for all manner of wayward critters on the roads. On this date, a bus hit a loose horse in front of Bermite. Neither fared very well.
APRIL 26, 1955
NO MORE THE BUZZ — Floyd Harvey Lamoreaux died on this date in his Race Street home. He was father to William A. Lamoreaux of Chloride, Arizona. William used to attend Newhall Elementary — part time. He held a full-time job as one of America’s top movie stars in the silent days. Billy Lamoreaux had the screen name of Western child actor, Buzz Barton.
APRIL 26, 1965
SLEEPY BUNCHA BAPTISTS — Happy anniversary to The Master’s University. On this date, 60 years back, their student dorm was completed. It cost $300,000 to build and slept 200.
LOCAL BOXBOY DOES GOOD — Happy anniversary to Safeway, too, even though it’s no longer around. They held their grand opening for the new Lyons Avenue store. My pal Mike Pearson was a checker there at Safeway and now the guy owns half of Oregon. Well. Maybe not quite half …
APRIL 26, 1975
MOTORCYCLE MURDER — A birthday party for Vagos motorcycle gang president Monte Sherman Chappell of Palmdale ended in death. Members of his gang jumped a bar patron at the Old Ranch House (where McDonald’s is today at Magic Mountain Parkway and The Old Road) and began beating him in the parking lot. Two bystanders rushed to his aid and were immediately stomped to the ground and beaten. One of the gang pulled a shotgun out and shot Ken Vannoy at point blank range in the chest, killing him. Chappell was later one of three men arrested for the murder. Charges were dropped when witnesses refused to testify against the gang. The Vagos three years earlier made headlines in a kidnap/murder spree at former Santa Clarita mayor Jo Anne Darcy’s bar in Acton.
AT LEAST THEY WEREN’T NAMED PORK & BEANS — I mean to shout, you couldn’t actively search the duty roster of the entire Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and come up with two better names to fit the detail. Sgt. Bill Bacon and Sgt. Ben Cook were partners on — of all things — the livestock rustling beat. Most of their work was at the north end of the county in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys. In years earlier, rustling took the form of stealing cattle. But since the 1960s, the animal of choice was the horse. Both men worked on about three capers a week involving the theft of horses ranging (get it?) in value from $300 to $10,000. When it was formed in 1912, the agency was called the Horse Theft Detail. This wasn’t far after the time when a rustler was caught, tried and hanged all within a few dizzying minutes. Modern methods were a little different. Bacon and Cook (how they must have grown weary of the looks and jokes) said one of the top means of arrest was for a random patrolman to stop someone with an inordinate amount of blood on their vehicle. One method to safeguard your rural goods is still good today: Tattoo or stamp your driver’s license number on your horse and saddle — in that order.
THE SILVER COUGAR — COC coach Lee Smelser narrowly missed a perfect season on this date by one stroke. The Silver Cougar, who also coached basketball, was the mentor of the local JC’s divot squad. They had a perfect 0-14 record going when the team nipped Glendale, 487-488. For you non-duffing yuppies, low score is the more desirable.
AIN’T THAT THE BLANKETY-BLANK TRUTH — You know what they say about Freudian slips. The SCV Board of Realtors on this date sent out thousands of fliers with the headline: “A VOICE FOR AMERICA’S PROPERTY OWERS.”
APRIL 26, 1985
EL PRESIDENTE — The president was in town 40 years ago. That would be Leon Febres Cordero, not Ronald Reagan. The Ecuadorian head of state was visiting Wes Thompson’s Juniper Tree Rifle Range to compete with hundreds of other top marksmen for the World Speed Shooting Championship. Nope. Leon didn’t win. Didn’t even come in the money.
A LITTLE CAFÉ TRIVIA — On this date, The Egg Plant changed its name to The Egg Plantation. Seems there was some confusion as to just what they were cooking — eggs or eggplant — at the breakfast palace.
LITTLE TUBIE — Wonder what he’s doing now. The SCV’s first test tube baby was born on this date at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. I’m not going to share the girl’s name. At the time, she was just one of 300 test tube babies in the whole world. She still might live in town and might not know she’s a test tube baby. Happy 40th birthday, kiddo …
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS — The Mighty Signal, in honor of the anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake, published an Earthquake Preparation Guide. It printed a map of how much time you’d have to get out of harm’s wet way if the Bouquet Reservoir burst. They calculated that it would take about 45 minutes for the floodwaters to reach the Valencia/Bouquet/Soledad intersection. Obviously, if the much larger Castaic Dam broke, it would take just a few minutes before water and debris reached Castaic. Guess if you’re there and it happens, jump high, flap your arms and stay up as long as you can.
• • •
Sure appreciate the company, dear saddlepals. You are near and dear to me. Let’s make it a point to ride together next weekend and explore some new SCV trails and vistas. Until then — vayan con Dios, amigos!
Local historian and the world’s most prolific satirist/humorist John Boston hosts an eclectic bookstore and multimedia/commentary website at johnlovesamerica.com/bookstore. Also? Pick up a copy of Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America — The Santa Clarita Valley” there.
