Heavens, saddlepals. To where has this 2026 disappeared? Last trail ride of September. October and Halloween are right around the corner and we’re already into autumn.
As my dear, dear pal and soul brother, John Duarte, once wrote in a Hart High (forever home of the Mighty Indians) essay 60 years ago: “Time, like your uncle, is relative.”
And so it is.
On a fine horse, shall we escape into simpler climes and beautiful vistas, poke around a bit and see what monkey business we can stir up?
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
THE INDIAN VARMINT FORECAST — Centuries ago, our local Tataviams had an interesting way to tell in September if a wet winter was looming. They monitored the smaller burrowing creatures and rodents. If the critters dug their dens higher, rain was coming. Noticing my back hill and all the squirrel holes, I’d say, in the upcoming here-&-now, it’s gonna be a wet one …
OIL. IT STARTED RIGHT HERE — There’s hardly a person in the state who doesn’t watch the price at the gas pumps today. Much of the oil blessing in California started in one of our countless hidden back canyons. On Sept. 26, 1876, California Standard Oil’s Well No. 4 would begin pumping out black gold, making it the first commercial oil well in the state. That well, which has a historic marker way back up behind Mentryville, pumped out crude for well over a century. Last time I was up that far, there was still a little seeping out of the ground.
TWINSY BOULEVARD? — On Sept. 24, 1855, twin brothers hailing from Maine — Cyrus and Sanford Lyon — bought a stage depot from Henry Clay Wiley. It was near present-day Eternal Valley and was pretty much the population center of the east end of the Santa Clarita Valley. Despite being twins, the brothers had different temperaments. Sanford was the methodical storekeeper and businessman. Cyrus was a legendary lawman and pistol fighter. They would rename part of Pico Canyon and part of 10th Street after the boys. It was a left-handed tribute. The street should have been called “Lyon Avenue,” not “Lyons.”
MOO — Today, Lyons and Railroad Avenue is one our major and busiest intersections in the valley. Back in the 1880s, prior to the historic and five-star Southern Hotel being built there, it was a cattle feed lot.
FOR ALL YOUR HORSESHOEING NEEDS — Down Soledad Canyon Road, in the 1880s, next to the former Saugus Speedway, it was the site of the original Newhall Ranch blacksmith shop.
EXCUSE ME. DO YOU MINE? — We’ve all motored up Highway 14, toward the Mojave Desert to the northeast. Just coming out of Canyon Country, there are still a string of mines along Soledad Canyon with names like Red Rover, Union, Puritan, Emma and Governor. Many of them were owned by one man — former part-time Santa Claritanite, Henry T. Gage. He was born in 1852 back east and transplanted to L.A. where he was elected city attorney of Los Angeles.
One historian noted that Hank collected mines like some men collected pocket watches. He was the owner of the most profitable gold mine in L.A. County — for a very short time. Prior to his purchase of what he would rename “The New York” mine after his home state, that pit had been the richest gold mine in L.A. County.
From 1895 to 1897, the owner pulled out a fortune from a fabulously wide vein. Gage bought the land for $1.5 million and a short while later, the gold dried up. You can’t say there were profits, but Gage was a rich man and used some of the profits from other holdings to finance his successful campaign for governor of California. (He served 1899-1903.)
Gage pretty much alienated everyone in politics during his term, battling bureaucracy, newspapers, lobbyists and deficit spending. While he was good friends with Theodore Roosevelt and spent many days with the president at the Acton Hotel, he alienated himself from higher office.
Roosevelt appointed him ambassador to Portugal, but Gage resigned when his wife Emma’s health declined. He came back to L.A. and died in 1924. His son reopened the old New York Mine in 1932 and renamed it Governor, after his dad.
Digging a bit more, they rediscovered the rich lost vein at 400 feet down. The ore assayed out at $40 a ton — big money in the Depression. The vein was lost again and the mine was closed forever in 1942.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1926
NO RELATION TO VANILLA — Prior to 1926, folks had the dubious problem of how to keep things cold. Ice used to be shipped up from San Fernando. All that changed when a Mr. Phipps of Van Nuys, associated with the Jones brothers of the feed store, agreed to build a modern new ice plant in downtown Newhall. For around a century, Newhall Ice was a household name in every SCV home, although in some of those triple-digit summer days, you had to vamoose big time to get a 100-pound block of ice home on a wagon before it morphed into an ice cube.
THOSE POOR BOY SCOUTS — Troop No. 2 held a big cleanup day around the SCV, picking up litter and straightening. Eighty years later, they’re still cleaning up …
AND THE HORSE LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT — We don’t have too many of these kinds of accidents in 2026. But eight decades back, an unidentified Palmdale driver swerved off the road to avoid a wrong-way driver and hit Mary Garcia atop her horse-drawn wagon. Mary broke her leg. The horse was OK, as was the Palmdalian. Geez, saddlepals. Seems like just yesterday when horses and riders were meandering through Downtown Newhall …
AND THE CALCULATOR READS — Just $400 an acre. Silent movie director Alfred Green bought the 80 acres known as Mylerly Crest, owned by T.C. Myers in Mint Canyon. The mogul paid $32,000 — in cash — for the property and promptly turned it into a vineyard. In the spacious ranch house, the 32-year-old director plopped his mom and dad.
THE SIGNAL vs. MOWGLI’S FATHER — On this date, Signal editor and owner A.B. “Dad” Thatcher took on Rudyard Kipling. Thatcher hated the writer’s immortal offering on death and war. Wrote Dad on the man who also wrote “The Jungle Book”: “And the soldiers dead in France and America and the hopeless cripples in American hospitals deserved more credit than to have Kipling insult them with that miserable excuse for poetry called ‘The Vineyard.’”
SEPTEMBER 26, 1936
BYE-BYE LITTLE BEAR — Vernon “Bob” Walk, grandfather of the future World Series and Hart High pitcher of the same name, was a smidge furious 90 years back. A man claiming to be an officer with the county humane bureau charged him with cruelty to animals. Over at the bottom of what is today Sierra Highway on the San Fernando Valley side, Walk used to have a ranch and gas station. He kept a pet bear on a chain at the station for six years. Locals reported that Walk treated the bruin well. Walk accused the man of trying to make $25 by selling the creature to a zoo.
THOSE HALCYON DAYS — Often there’s time when I long for this kind of demographic. A head count provided that there were about 1,450 people living in Newhall, not including the 150 who were housed in the sanitarium up Wildwood Canyon. That was an increase of about 50% from the 1930 census. Eeeesh. Today? There’s 1,450 people in the same apartment …
WARS KILL PEOPLE. SO DO CARS. — The Signal printed some sobering facts. There were 50,290 Americans killed in World War I. In the previous 18 months prior to September 1936, there were 52,390 people killed in American car accidents. From 1926 to 1936, there were more people killed in car accidents than in all the American-involved wars from the previous 160 years.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1946
A MOST HORRIFIC WAY TO ESCAPE — Driver Jack Clevenger thought he had backed over a packing crate. It was actually Harry Lee Sugden’s head. Sugden was serving a 90-day sentence for drunkenness and vagrancy at Wayside Honor Rancho, the predecessor to the Pitchess Big House in Castaic today. One minute, Sugden was talking to a fellow inmate. The next, he quietly slipped away, crawled on his side, placed his head next to a big rear truck tire and committed suicide in a most grisly fashion.
WITH CONTRITE APOLOGIES BEFOREHAND … — With unmatched journalistic courage, I’ve oft reported that our Santa Clarita Valley was paradise. And so it came to pass. A big rig spilled its cargo of several tons of luscious Oregon pears. The crates were left for passing motorists, making us, well. “Pear-a-dise.” Avoiding eye contact. Sorry …
SEPTEMBER 26, 1956
1984? — I believe it was Oscar Wilde who warned: “Beware of professions that require uniforms.” On this date, the parks department required its staff to wear uniforms. They were the imaginative gray slacks (skirts for the gals); white shirts, blue jackets and blue baseball caps.
OAK vs. AUTO — Next we quote Lynyrd Skynyrd: “Oak tree you’re in my way.” Roy Sowles ran his big Pontiac into an oak up Mint Canyon. Roy lived. Two of his passengers didn’t.
RALPH – 1, SHEEP — NEGATIVE 12 — Some of you old-timers will recall this slice of SCV life. Back not so long ago when we were primarily agricultural, traffic (what there was of it) would sometimes be stopped because of large flocks of sheep crossing the various roads. Sometimes, the traffic didn’t stop. On this date, herder Pedro Uricz lost some of his flock when Ralph Brown failed to stop and killed an even dozen of the woolly denizens.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1966
NOT GANDHI, JESUS OR GEORGE WASHINGTON? — On this date, my dear pal, the 16-year-old and terribly near-sighted Chris Haskell — who would later marry Ernie Villegas, who is past mayor of Fillmore and state assemblyman — was asked by The Mighty Signal’s Question Man: “Who is your idol?” Chris answered: Elizabeth Taylor. Yeah. Mine too, back then. Chris actually looked a lot like Ms. Taylor …
HATE HOLDS A RALLY — For most of the valley, their idol was NOT the Ku Klux Klan. The men in the white polyester sheets held a cross-burning KKK rally along the banks of the Santa Clara River in Canyon Country, up near the road tunnel on Soledad. Klan leader Bill Fowler and his 19 constituents (only “white spectators were welcome”) were outnumbered by press, police and spectators.
TRYING TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT — Interestingly, the only arrest at the KKK rally was of Charles Lambert, the owner of the property who was reportedly duped by Fowler into letting him rent the spot for the Klan’s get-together. Lambert had been fired from a local auto dealership because of the bad publicity that trickled back to his car lot. Incensed by losing his job, Lambert unsuccessfully tried to stop the rally before it started. Then, day of, he parked his car in the dirt driveway, trying to block the entrance. He was arrested for brandishing a .357 in front of a deputy.
THE MIGHTY SIGNAL — Publisher Scott Newhall penned a great editorial entitled, “The Klan’s Mockery of Jesus Christ.” It was a soft and touching tribute to the dignity and brotherhood of man.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1976
THE CANYON COUNTRY CAT HOUSE CLOSES — Nope. ’Tweren’t a brothel. It was more out of a scene from an Edgar Allan Poe horror story. Sheriff’s deputies found an abandoned part of Flare Industrial Park being used to keep hundreds of dead cats. The embalmed felines were sold to companies and universities for scientific experiments. While somewhat a dubious field, it was an actual legitimate company called West Coast Specimens and owned by G. Barnes of Castaic.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1986
ENGLUND SWINGS — From the Well, Duh Department, County Fire Chief John Englund went before the Regional Planning Commission 40 years ago to complain about congestion in the SCV. John noted that the gridlock sometimes affected emergency vehicles.
ONE OF THE ILLS OF PROGRESS IS CULTURAL — A growing problem in the suburban SCV was the use of crack cocaine. Both sales and arrests were rising in the former small village.
WENT TOO FAST — Billy “The Kidd” Todd, one of the two fastest boat racers in the world, died at Castaic Lake during a boat race. More than 5,000 watched in horror as he flipped his high-speed boat.
YOU’D THINK HE’D BE GOING IN CIRCLES — Hugh Culverhouse passed through the SCV on this date on a cross-country bike ride from Los Angeles to New York. It’s been done, but Hugh only had one leg.
• • •
Compadres and compadre-ettes, thanks once again for riding through the Santa Clarita of yesterday with me. I surely look forward to seeing you all next week in another exciting Time Ranger adventure. 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.
