Santa Clarita City Councilwoman Marsha McLean said she was wearing “the biggest smile” after the state’s Historical Resources Commission made things official Friday: “La Puerta” is now officially a Point of Historical Interest.
McLean said Friday’s vote in Sacramento marked the payoff from decades of hard work to preserve the area, which dates back to a fight to keep a landfill out of Elsmere Canyon.
“Having La Puerta designated as a point of historical interest has been on my agenda for many, many, many years, ever since we finally saved Elsmere Canyon from being the world’s largest garbage dump and having the historical sites such as this buried in garbage,” McLean said in a phone interview Friday. “So, it has been a long, long, long time coming.”
She thanked the commission, which she said acknowledged how unique it was to see a city and a historical society work together on the preservation effort.
The application was part of a coordination between the city and the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society in terms of justifying the significance of La Puerta, which McLean described as “the most historically significant natural passage through the San Gabriel Mountains, linking Rancho San Fernando and Rancho San Francisco via El Camino Viejo.”
Leon Worden, who is heavily involved in the Historical Society and operations for the city’s public access television station, said La Puerta represents more than a point on the map, praising McLean’s advocacy for the area.
“La Puerta is more than a point on a map. It’s a key to unlocking the history of mobility and commerce that helped transform California into the world’s fourth-largest economy,” Worden wrote in a direct message. “An old Native American trade route became a Spanish horse trail, which became an important wagon route, which became an auto road, which became a superhighway. Two superhighways. Everything comes through the Newhall Pass.”
The original historic path was rerouted a few times over the centuries due to the increased traffic, he said, before being restored to where it started.
“Today, that point on the map overlooks the 14 freeway,” he added.
Several other state historical points of interest in the area are now under city control in its recently acquired William S. Hart Park in Newhall, he added: the Hart Ranch, Pardee house and the Saugus Train Station, which recently celebrated a reopening.
The discussion of Santa Clarita’s designation begins around 46:30: bit.ly/LaPuertaDesignation.
