I’ve oft said how quickly time passes. Seems like just yesterday we were riding in an unusually cold January. Now, forecasted is a rather pleasant Labor Day weekend with a chance of rain.
We’ve an interesting adventure ahead, fraught with danger. There’s local KKK cross-burning, a local KKK oilman and Signal columnist, a troglodyte sports editor, roller coaster fires, drunken horseback riders and an outbreak of flashing.
Keep your knees firm and eyes peeled. We also have escaped lions and Hercules Himself to fight them.
Shall we mosey into the mystic yesteryear for a personal peek?
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
LET’S START WITH SOMETHING CORNY — Here’s some trivia guaranteed to make people walk away from you at the next Valencia Yuppie cocktail party. In the 19th century, it took 4:34 man-hours to process one bushel of corn. In the early 20th century, with the aid of machinery, that task was cut to 41 minutes.
OUR MISSING TRAIN DEPOT — It was called Alpine and is known as The Missing Depot. Located between Acton and Palmdale at Alpine Springs, the railroad never got around to finishing their Alpine station.
AG HAMMER, AU NAIL — Using a silver hammer to drive a golden nail, zillionaire Charles Crocker drove the final spike into the railroad tracks linking Los Angeles with San Francisco. That was Sept. 5, 1876, for you date-takers.
SEPTEMBER 5, 1926
THE GOLDEN SPIKE: IT AIN’T A TROPICAL RUM DRINK — Speaking of the Golden Spike, another golden spike was driven at the Lang Station at the 1926 festivities, celebrating the 50th anniversary of that historic event. Lang was a desolate spot a century ago, with only a few railroad workers hanging around a water tank and railroad siding. In its heyday, the depot had a second spur, which was connected to the forgotten mining community of Sterling in upper Canyon Country.
On Sunday, Sept. 5, 1926, thousands of visitors descended onto the sleepy little depot, named after rancher John Lang who, it turns out, didn’t even own the land Southern Pacific paid him to put the depot they named after him.
Passengers, dressed in period costumes, rode three coaches to the fest. The coaches were pulled by an old steam engine, which was fed by firewood. The mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco came on different trains and met at Lang to reenact the original meeting in 1876 when a bevy of mucky mucks were there to open the rails. And, sadly, speeches were made in the hot sun.
A barbecue for 5,000 people was prepared by local Joe Romero and Fox Studios put on an old-time vaudeville show. Chief Standing Bear was also present, along with both American and Mexican bands. Interestingly, while it was mostly Chinese expatriates who did most of the work, there weren’t any Chinese performers.
One speaker was Mrs. Howard Slayton, who related stories her father, Don Monroe, passed along about how the legendary bandito Tiburcio Vasquez robbed him several times.
THE TRULY OVERWORKED MENTORS — It’s funny today how classes have one or two teachers along with aides. One hundred years back, Mr. and Mrs. Newsome were preparing study plans for Saugus Elementary to open for the fall semester. Saugus Elm sat in what is a present-day shopping center on Railroad Avenue. Mr. Newsome taught grades 5, 6, 7 & 8 while his wife taught grades 1, 2, 3 & 4.
SEPTEMBER 5, 1936
HELLFIRE, BRIMSTONE & NO SPARING OF HALLELUJAHS — Missouri traveling minister Loren Gunter set up a big circus tent next to the Harvey Beauty Parlor in Newhall and held a revival meeting.
OUR CONMAN CORRESPONDENT — The former KKK mucky muck and organizer, Milfred Yant, owned acreage in Placerita and kept selling all of it, several times over, in mineral rights scams. Crazy thing was, Yant didn’t know he WAS sitting on a huge fortune in oil. After spending time in prison for his schemes, he accidentally hit a fortune in black gold — in Placerita Canyon. The strike was so big, it altered world oil prices. Later, it was rumored the petroleum millionaire was behind Winnifred Westover’s attempt to gain control of her ex-husband’s (William S. Hart) entire estate. Supposedly, Yant felt there was (is?) a sea of oil under Hart Park.
A FILLMORE MOVIE HOUSE IN NEWHALL? — We’ve had several makeshift movie houses in the SCV prior to the American being built in 1941. Irregularly, they’d show movies at the Newhall Elementary Auditorium or, before that, the Hapaland Hall. (The former historic Newhall Courthouse recently bulldozed because it wasn’t historic enough.) Mostly, folks motored to San Fernando for a night at the movies, or, sometimes over to Fillmore. Ted Cunningham owned the Fillmore house and was snooping around town on this date, trying to see if he could start one here in the SCV. He didn’t.
AS GENE AUTRY NEVER SANG: “I’M TIPSY, IN THE SADDLE, AGAIN … — I think it’s been decades since we’ve had a drunken horserider case in the SCV. Ninety years back, locals were kidding Bud Galbreath for taking second place in the “Unofficial Prince of Wales Riding Contest.” Seems Bud fell off his horse and caused a roadblock going into Newhall. Judge Kennedy gave him a stiff six-month jail sentence to wean him of riding during his “under the influence” urges. Interesting name for a pony-riding intoxicant: Galbreath …
SEW WHAT? — Money sure was different during the Depression. Mrs. McFadden, the local seamstress, charged $2 to make dresses at your home or hers. That was two bucks a DAY …
SEPTEMBER 5, 1946
THE UNHEARD-OF SIGNAL OWNER — Claude “Red” McCartney was the new owner of The Signal on this date, 80 years ago. Nope. ’Tweren’t your community newspaper (259-1000 for subscriptions). It was the gas station at the corner of Market and San Fernando Road (Main Street, today). Nice thought, but don’t try filling up your saddlebags with 15-cents-a-gallon gas. It blows up when you go through the time portal …
WHICH IS WHY YOU NEVER, EVER, LIGHT A MATCH ON THE STERN SIDE OF YOUR HORSE — We had a $5 fire on this date. That’s what the county boys estimated the damage at a Mint Canyon ranch when some horse poop spontaneously combusted.
ABOUT ONE BUS LOAD — Students numbering in the thousands have already started high school real. Eighty years back? Hart High had 160 pupils for the fall semester and that was for the entire SCV.
SEPTEMBER 5, 1956
TALKIN’ TRASH — Rubbish czar Louis Visco was slapped with a petition by 1,200 angry locals. Louie wanted to build a dump in the scenic oak-filled canyons that used to be presidential candidate Henry Clay Needham’s ranch near Eternal Valley. The dump was never constructed. Today? It’s the Needham Ranch Parkway industrial and office center, off Newhall Avenue.
AND THE OLD LADY DIDN’T HAVE A SCRATCH ON CAR OR PERSON — You can cover a lot of mental distance in 350 feet. A Bakersfield family somehow managed to survive a plunge that deep over a cliff on the Five Mile Grade. The Comstock family veered off the road after an elderly woman stopped suddenly, apparently confused about a runaway truck ramp. Mrs. Comstock had two broken legs and the rest of the family escaped with minor scratches.
SEPTEMBER 5, 1966
THE BAD LUCK TIPTONS — You wouldn’t want to copy the lottery numbers the Tipton family picked. The poor clan may have set a world record for bad luck. Buying property in upper Bouquet Canyon, the father was seriously hurt in a car accident trying to avoid a runaway toddler. His own little boy was nearly killed when he fell out of a moving car in another accident. The family lost four — count them — four cabins within a year, three to floods and one to fire. Another child accidentally swallowed poison. The clan ended up moving into the home of a neighbor while planning to build House No. 5 and heal the family.
THE SIGNAL vs. THE KKK — In the 20th century, the Ku Klux Klan was a presence in the Santa Clarita. In 1966, the KKK applied for permits to burn a huge cross in Canyon Country. Flyers were sent to 50,000 people, including 20,000 Klansmen. The permit was denied for the cross burning, but the KKK continued to plan their outdoor meeting at Soledad Canyon and Capra, near the road tunnel. The courageous and colorful Signal owner and publisher, Scott Newhall, showed up at the cross burning, personally ordering the armed KKK to get out of the SCV and never come back. He later wrote an amazing front-page editorial about the true nature of Christianity and America.
DID THE ALIENS COME FROM THE MOON OR JUST PUBLICLY PULL THEIR BRITCHES DOWN? — Who said they never had any good movies at the old Mustang Drive-in on Soledad Canyon Road? On this date, the featured film was “Hercules Against the Moon Men.”
SEPTEMBER 5, 1976
SOME PRE-WNBA PROSE — Wonder if we could get away with this in 2026? An entire half-century ago, some long-ago Signal sports editor named Walt Cieplik composed a poem entitled, “Dames in Sports.” Here. A few lyrics:
A dame. She throws like a sissy.
Can she catch? No way, not at all.
Holding the bat like a kissy,
A dame still yearns to play ball.
Take a lap and watch her wiggle
Her endowments in a tight suit.
Nothing’s funny, but, she giggles.
A dame, at best, is cute.
Pausing to check her mascara
Or whether her nylons are straight,
Dames look good on camera
But can’t get the fans through the gate.
For who’ll pay cash to watch women
So daintily throwing to first,
And cackling like a prairie hen
After taking strike three with her purse.
In Cieplik’s defense, he wrote the poem after being bullied at a cocktail party to offer more coverage to women’s sports. Wonder what ever happened to the guy …
LIONS AVENUE — A small army and a pair of helicopters were used to flush out a pair of loose lionesses. The big cats escaped from Lions Etc., a wild animal compound up Soledad Canyon. The predators escaped when a delivery truck backed into a fence, gouging a lion-size hole in it.
THE RAGING NEWHALL RIVER — From the Well Duh, Dept., Newhall Creek was honored as one of the most hazardous waterways in Los Angeles County. But, in a bizarre bureaucratic ruling, it would only get $100,000 in flood control funds if there would be no heavy flooding the upcoming winter. An engineer predicted that in big rains, all of downtown Newhall could be flooded.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1986
AND YOU WONDER WHY WOMEN DON’T LIKE MEN — Maybe it was the heat. Forty years back, the SCV was hit with a bizarre crime wave. Dozens of reports of various men flashing women were reported to local sheriff’s deputies. The lawmen didn’t have far to travel in one of their investigations. One flasher yanked down his drawers to a 42-year-old woman walking near the sheriff’s HQ at the Valencia county center.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, AT LEAST THEY WEREN’T DRIVING — I suppose it’s all in how you describe, “controlled.” On this date, the Fire Department instigated a controlled burn behind Magic Mountain. They lost control and it turned into a first-class brush fire after winds switched directions. For a while, it endangered the Colossus roller coaster. Small sidebar? One of the crews brought in to fight the blaze was Malibu Camp Crew No. 13. It was comprised of all women. The controlled burn ended up burning nearly 4,000 of the — WRONG — acres.
• • •
Happy first weekend in September. We’re on the downhill march toward the pleasant climes of Santa Clarita autumn. See you back here next weekend with another exciting Time Ranger into our rich and entertaining local history. Until then? ¡Vayan con Dios, amigos!
Visit John Boston’s bookstore and eclectic online store with unique gifts for readers and writers at JohnBoston-Books.com. Lifelong SCV resident Boston, with 119 major writing awards and nearly 12,000 columns, is the most prolific humorist and satirist in world history.
