Being straight as Interstate 5 past Bakersfield and in a confident, male, heterosexual fashion, I truly wish all you dear Santa Clarita saddlepals a most enjoyable, meaningful and sweet Valentine’s Day today. May all y’all be loved and appreciated.
Now.
That doesn’t mean we’re supposed to let our guards down. Up ahead on this morning’s trail ride through Santa Clarita Valley history, we’ve got waiting convicts, condors, biplane hijackers and a family’s double tragedy.
On the bright side? Don’t forget to mark your calendars. Next Sunday noon, Feb. 22, I’ll be giving a most entertaining presentation at Rancho Camulos (off Highway 126). Topic? The legendary Signal editors, Scott and Ruth Newhall and the wild days of The Mighty Signal.
Shall we mosey into the mystic?
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
GIANT BIRD GOLD POUCHES — It’s funny how our cultural perceptions change. Today, the condor is on the endangered species list and, thankfully, it’s making a comeback in the wild. Back in the 19th century, local miners would try to shoot the prehistoric buzzard. They’d pluck out the feathers and use the hollow quills to store gold dust. Sure seems like there would be a more convenient way to haul the mother lode around.
SAUGHALL? — This always confounds the neophytes. The town of Newhall was actually founded where Saugus sits today. Founded on Sept. 6, 1876, the entire village of Newhall — lock, stock, boards, dogs and barrel — uprooted from around where Railroad Avenue and Magic Mountain Parkway is today and moved down the road to where 6th and Main Street is. The reason? After less than two years, the residents realized there wasn’t any water. The move took place on Feb. 15, 1878. Last I looked, Newhall hasn’t moved since.
FEBRUARY 14, 1926
THE RIPARIAN SANTA CLARITA — We’ve often chatted about how the water table used to be much higher and that the major creeks used to run year-round here. A resident of the Atwood Addition (that old neighborhood just south of Lyons in Newhall) reported how she had lived on her small farm for years and that Wiley Creek and a major artery running through Happy Valley ran knee-high, all year round. After a particularly good storm, the creeks around town were flowing. Kids were coming home smiling, shivering and muddy. Some folks had to stay with friends or family because some of the creeks were impassable.
SMALL TOWN CAPITALISM — Talk about cornering the market. On this date, Fred Lamkin was a rather happy capitalist. He sold three brand new Chevys AND five pieces of real estate.
FEBRUARY 14, 1936
THIEF OF PLANES — A handsome young stranger made a surprise visit to Phil Quinn’s ranch up Mint Canyon. The fellow landed a biplane on a section of his fields. After giving Mr. Quinn some cash and a gun to guard the plane, the personable pilot even got Phil to give him a ride to the Black & White Cafe so he could catch a ride into Los Angeles. After partaking of a free meal and ride back to the big city, locals were rather shocked to learn the chap had stolen the plane.
FROM A TINY ACORN — Here’s the question: Ninety years ago this week, the Newhall Elementary PTA planted a young oak sapling for their Founders’ Day celebration. Is that 90-year-old oak still on campus?
THE KILLER BUG — Locals were talking about the possibility of canceling several events. Why? A big flu epidemic was sweeping the country. Although the bug was more endemic to the northern part of the state, many here in the SCV were stricken. Many still remembered the great pandemic during the early 1900s that killed millions worldwide.
FEBRUARY 14, 1946
SOME SERIOUS CATHOLIC TRIVIA — On this date, Tom O’Malley, ex-Army chaplain, became the SCV’s first resident priest since the days of Mission San Francisco in the early 1800s. Prior to 1946, priests from San Fernando Mission tended their distant flocks in the SCV. Capt. O’Malley had served in the 40th Division and was stationed in the Pacific during World War II. While his personal quarters were being built near the present-day corner of Lyons and Walnut, the pastor slept in the back of the church. Hmm. Tom O’Malley. What are the odds? An Irish priest?
OUR SNOWY SEASON — It’s been typical, oddball Southern California weather the past couple of weeks with Santa Anas blowing and the days being Bermuda shorts weather. But, 80 years back, the upper parts of the valley were dusted with snow and nighttime lows dipped to 20.
FEBRUARY 14, 1956
THE HORRIFIC STILL LIFE SCULPTURE — An owl had captured a rabbit then flew to the top of some high-tension wires. Dangling in its claws, the jackrabbit touched the line below and electrocuted its killer. Owl and rabbit were charred black and frozen for over a day.
UNFAIR — The Signal editorial on this date 70 years back praised the move by Hart High out of the powerful Ventura League. Hart had been getting their hats hammered and spit in by the larger schools in the conference for years. The Signal pointed out that the SCV had no business competing with such major cities as “Oxnard, Ventura and Santa Paula.” Wonder what the folks from 1956 would think of Hart and future and yet-to-be-built SCV schools capturing handfuls of CIF championships?
FEBRUARY 14, 1966
OAKS TO BASEBALL — Los Angeles Baptist College (today, The Master’s University) in Placerita Canyon continued its growth spurt. It had just 180 students 60 years ago. But, they were beginning to build their athletic field. It was rather controversial back then. Seems that to make way for the baseball field and gymnasium, LABC axed dozens of heritage oaks after promising the widow who had sold them the land that they would stay forever.
A BLACK DAY AT A SAUGUS HOME — Earlier in the day, the 24-year-old son had been involved in a car wreck. Eleven hours later, his father was killed when he lost control at a high rate of speed on Sierra Highway, hit an oak and died.
ETHICS-SCHMETHICS — The Mighty Signal sent a photographer to take a picture of the snowfall on local mountains. Problem was, by the time the shutterbug made it out, it was late in the day. Light was bad, and, frankly, some of the snow had melted. We didn’t have any other photos, so, one of the backshop artists took some White-Out — that stuff with which you make corrections on typewritten documents — and sketched in snow-capped mountains. Cold that week, too. Lows fell into the mid-20s. Or, at least we said they did …
A VALIANT EFFORT — Six of seven people had a Pacific Telephone installer, a CHP officer, doctor and Forest Ranger to thank for their lives. The seventh perhaps could rest peacefully that her fellow human beings tried so hard to save her. A car went over a 250-foot cliff off Lake Hughes Road during a torrential and cold combination of snow and rain. For five hours, Witt, the telephone man, balanced on a phone pole, hooking in to the wires so they could communicate with other emergency rescuers. D.E. Sechrengost, the CHP officer, climbed down the embankment with Ranger Don Overbaugh and helped save six of seven. Sechrengost didn’t have a jacket during the freezing conditions. An elderly woman perished at the bottom of the ravine, but the rest made it out alive.
ADIOS, DEAR PARAGRAPHIST — Signal columnist Lucius Beebe died on this date. Signal owner Scott Newhall remembered him fondly, noting it was sometimes difficult trying to reign in such a colorful force, “who owns a stable of Rolls Royce motor cars, a Bentley, a Thunderbird or two, a private railroad car, and a baronial Victorian mansion perched on top of the legendary silver workings of the Comstock Lode at Virgina City, Nevada.” Just so it’s in the public record, here’s one small sample of Beebe’s prose: “Just to show I am not hiding out in the correspondent’s dugout, far to the rear of actual fighting, I have suffered, too, severe attacks of gout. My weight is up 9 pounds, and a Harley Street physician, summoned to minister to my extremities, asserted that my liver was of ducal dimensions.”
FEBRUARY 7, 1971
THE BIG QUAKE — I remember where I was. In bed. On this date, at 5:59 a.m., a 6.6 earthquake centered in Sylmar rocked and rolled the valley. We had a rather famous photo of a car sticking nose down in a sink hole in downtown Newhall.
The quake caused $5.3 million in local damage to 1,540 of the valley’s 15,000 permanent buildings. (Do you realize that at today’s real estate prices, that would have only been NINE houses?) Mobile homes suffered the worse. About 70% of the SCV’s 2,200 mobile homes.
One car, parked near Hart Park, was partially swallowed up by the earth. Signal Editor Scott Newhall came up with chilling prose in his editorial: “The Earth for a moment played us false. We are suddenly a baby who has been dropped by its mother, and we resent it.”
On the bright side, while the quake caused $1 billion in Southern California damage, it was just 1/100th the strength of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Care to guess who was hurt the most by the 1971 earthquake? Thatcher Glass. About $3 million cleanup bill.
One of the after-effects of the Feb. 9 earthquake was flight. Several hundred residents put their homes up for sale, pulled their kids out of school and moved out of the SCV, citing fear of the moving Southern California earth.
Another by-product of the quake was parking lot sales. Nearly every business in town was setting up tables, trying to get rid of quake-damaged merchandise, some of it marked down 90%.
FEBRUARY 14, 1976
DOCTOR STRIKE — On the bright side, they’re back at work today. But 50 years ago, some were wondering if medicine would be practiced in Santa Clarita anymore. Local doctors ended a 35-day slowdown as a protest to skyrocketing malpractice insurance. The slowdown had been inching the brand new Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital toward the brink of bankruptcy. The average number of patients seen at the local hospital for January 1976 was 27 per day. It should have been around 60.
FEBRUARY 14, 1986
BUCK A GALLON? — We could pretty much re-run the swashbuckling newspaperman’s editorial word-for-word today. On this date, Scott Newhall penned one of his infamous front-page editorials. This one lambasted big oil, accusing that they were behind an international price-fixing conspiracy. That’s back when gas was a little over a dollar a gallon.
TRAFFIC JAM ON BOUQUET? WHAT’RE THE ODDS? — Another sign we haven’t moved much was a story about the continuing stories about traffic being backed up at Soledad Canyon, near the Bouquet Junction. Hmmm …
PITCHESS PRISON: THE GROCERY STORE OF LOS ANGELES — How the times have changed. In 1986, Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic was touted in a front-page series on how they supplied dairy products and other goods and services to the county’s other big houses. The jail was in transition, turning from a country club honor farm for low-risk criminals to the present-day dredges of society. Back in 1986, Pitchess produced about 1 million gallons of milk for itself and eight other jails and 23 juvenile detention centers. They also provided 100,000 pounds of pork, 42,610 loaves of bread, 3,988 dozens of rolls, 9,310 dozens of cookies, not to mention beef.
• • •
Okey smokes. Don’t forget. Looking forward to seeing you next week at Rancho Camulos off Highway 126 just west of Castaic where I’ll be lecturing on the Ruth & Scott Newhall history days at The Mighty Signal. It’s Sunday, Feb. 22, and starts at noon. There’ll be a $10 donation. That shameless plug aside — tip of the O’Farrell to you saddlepals. Thanks for the company. See you Santa Claritans next Saturday in another exciting Time Ranger adventure, and, until then — ¡Vayan con Dios, amigos y Bienvenido a febrero!
Local historian and the world’s most prolific satirist/humorist John Boston has launched his new eclectic bookstore — johnboston-books.com. His hilarious adventure/family/supernatural sequel to the national bestseller, “Naked Came the Sasquatch,” — “Naked Came the Novelist” —is on sale now. Ditto with his two-volume “Monsters” series about the supernatural in the SCV.
