Seems we’ve turned the valley upside down and we’re enjoying summer close to Christmas.
Just about a perfect day to go time traveling, isn’t it?
This morning, we’ll guide our steeds through the local time portal and visit the site of perhaps the most spectacular crime in Santa Clarita Valley history, the great Saugus train robbery. We’ve got floods, football streaks ending oh-so painfully and unlady-like behavior a la a big-time girl fight.
Now. How can you NOT hop in the saddle after hearing that teaser?
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN
WITH APOLOGIES TO ANCIENT TATAVIAM MEDICINE MEN (AND WOMEN) — The first doctor to practice in the SCV was L.B. Lawrence. He opened up an office in the Acton/Agua Dulce area in the 1860s. After he left, it wasn’t until 1896 when the next resident physician — Dr. J.G. McLeod — arrived. McLeod’s practice stretched from Piru to Lancaster. Talk about how tough it was to make a house call. My longtime and dear saddlepal, Gladys Laney (a Newhall lifer and Market Street Thibaudeau) who finally went to her reward after 103 years!), was related to Dr. McLeod on some level. His widow was Mrs. A.G. Thibaudeau.
TONGS FOR THE MEMORIES — Back in the 1890s, we had the Earl Meat Packing Co., situated in downtown Newhall. While the company was run by a white manager, Lou Ledger, nearly all of its employees were Chinese. A Tong (sort of a Chinese Mafia) oversaw the workers, who were mostly ex-railroad builders. An interesting phenomenon occurred about three times a year. The entire work force quit, then, was hired back the next day. Why? The Tong representative got a $1 bonus for every man he hired. Ledger, by the way, ended up being killed by a beautiful señorita. She stabbed poor Lou to death smack dab on the dance floor.
NOVEMBER 14, 1926
WE JUST KEEP GETTING MORE AND MORE CIVILIZED — On this date, the Board of Supervisors voted to improve some of the surface streets in Newhall. That meant they would get a fresh coat of crushed gravel and an oil coating.
GIRL FIGHT — One of my favorite headlines in journalism is: “Women Fight in Car.” A century ago, a couple of Angeleno women duked it out in Mint Canyon. The loser was pushed from the auto and ended up at a distant ranch. She noted her pugilist partner was angry and suicidal, but not so suicidal as to lose the fisticuffs.
NOVEMBER 10, 1929
THE GREAT SAUGUS TRAIN ROBBERY — A baby-faced smallish cowboy, small-time criminal and frontier wild West show rider, one Tom Averill, aka, “Buffalo” Tom Vernon, was the perpetrator of one of the last big train robberies in the history of the West. Right behind today’s former Saugus Speedway (near Del Taco), Vernon loosened some rails and derailed a combination freight and passenger train. It flipped over. Vernon hopped aboard and robbed passengers and crew of about $300 — a pretty good heist then. It made national headlines and thousands of folks motored up here to looky-loo at the overturned locomotive. No one knew the identity of the solitary bandit until a local lawman figured out the crime. Seems Tom was on a nearby hill, watching the train flip. While crouching, he dropped an addressed letter out of his back pocket, detailing his travel plans to visit Wyoming. He was soon arrested without incident, tried and sentenced to life in prison. As an old man, he was given an early release.
NOVEMBER 14, 1936
WHEN TIMES WERE TOUGH — A few kids today still have something the old-timers used to call, “… chores.” But compare them to Joe Balsz’s Saturday of 90 years back. Poor Joe, who was in the sixth grade then, was ordered by his father to hitch up a team of horses and bring up a wagon of irrigation pipe. As Joe reined the horses forward, the pipe shifted, scaring the team. They bolted. A pipe lurched forward, knocking out his brother Frank. They reloaded the wagon and started the process all over again.
SO WHEN CAN I MOVE IN? — I know the money rate is different, but this still wows me. A 10-acre “ranchette,” on Arcadia Street, with a six-room completely furnished house, was up for lease. Rent? Just $15 a month. I did a little snooping and a 2-acre ranchette in the SCV would go for between a measly $6,000 and $9,000 a month. Add another grand if you found a place with a pool …
RE: THE ABOVE — Who the heck can afford $120,000 a year to rent 2 blankety-blank acres? Farm-life wise, that’s about enough room to plant one, skinny avocado tree …
NOVEMBER 14, 1946
THE RAINS OF SAUGUSAPOUR — Boy howdy we got drenched — nearly 7 inches of rain from a three-day storm. In some parts of the valley, the creeks ran over the bridges.
MY HIGH SCHOOL STOMPING GROUNDS — I remember this little grocery store seemed old and run down when I was a kid. Here’s some extreme trivia, especially for you old-timers. On this date, the Country Store at the corner of Lyons and Newhall Avenue opened, where Jack in the Box sits today. She surely wasn’t born yet, but Rosalind Wayman would become its best customer. I used to go in mornings before junior high and buy penny candies, then sell them for a nickel at Placerita. Jimmy Thompson and Art Alexander were the first proprietors.
AND, OF COURSE, PUNCH AND COOKIES WERE SERVED — On this date, invitations were sent out to help form the first-ever PTA for the new William S. Hart High School.
NOVEMBER 14, 1956
THE BENGAL TIGER TRAP EXCEPT FOR STUDENTS — Earl Goad sued the William S. Hart Union High School District for the princely sum of $75,000. Seems his daughter fell into an open manhole on the Hart campus. I remember that darn hole. There’s a huge aquifer under Hart High and right behind the auditorium, there were these huge metal grates that they’d sometimes leave open, even years after the suit.
HOTTER THAN HAY-DES — (Sorry.) Across the valley in Castaic, trucker Henry Bloernhoff’s short snooze in the heat wave in the mid-90’s was interrupted by the smell of smoke. His double hay rig had caught fire while he was napping. Henry quickly untied the trailers from the truck, then started chucking burning bales. Don’t know if it was spontaneous combustion or some prankster throwing a cigarette at his rig while he was napping.
BOOK ‘EM — Seventy years ago, L.A. County started accepting bids to build the Newhall Library, over on 9th Street in Newhall.
NOVEMBER 14, 1966
THE BIRTH OF THE YUPPIE CONCENTRATION CAMP — Signal reporter Ken Gosting penned an excellent overview of progress and our knack of feeding on ourselves. He cited a vicious figure-8 cycle where developers couldn’t build aesthetic houses and neighborhoods because of the costly process of red tape and growing government fees. Seems with the plethora of cookie cutter Monopoly game-style houses, it has only gotten worse …
LAKE LYONS — Seaworthiness was a significant factor of your vehicle if you lived in the SCV during the rains. A big storm came through. Lyons Avenue, then a two-lane little road in the middle of agricultural fields, became a swamp. A school bus was swept off the road and was stuck in a yard of mud. Schools had to close early. The one-day storm dumped a half-foot of rain. Also, the mercury plunged from a high of 90 degrees one day to a high of 69 the next.
THERE YOU GO AGAIN — Some “B” actor named Ronald Reagan took the state’s top office in a landslide. Before becoming governor, Ronnie, of course, was a famous Hollywood actor, followed by being a spokesman for General Electric. In the 1950s, Reagan spoke twice as a G.E. PR man, speaking at the Hart Auditorium. Both times, his appearance only made a small note in the back pages of The Signal. A little “Gipper” trivia? Like yours truly, he HATED Brussel Sprouts, inadvertently discovered Marilyn Monroe in 1945 by sending a photographer on a “Women at War” assignment and was hard of hearing due to an actor firing a pistol close to his ear during a movie shoot. That’s why you always saw him as governor and president, holding his ear when reporters yelled questions.
FUTURE PERSONS OF COW — On this date, the Hart trustees unanimously approved some project called Canyon High.
NOVEMBER 14, 1976
SICK ANIMAL CRUELTY — Ever heard of Baloney? No. We’re not offering a raspberry to City Hall about their choices for the Walk of Western Stars. That’s our version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but aimed at Western stars. Baloney was the Brahma bull who starred in the Western comedy, “Blazing Saddles.” Remember Alex Karras riding the huge bull in the Mel Brooks’ comedy? Baloney lived out here in Santa Clarita and had his acting career cut short by some slimy, sicko perverts who shot him in his stall. The shotgun blast wounded Baloney, who also appeared with Barbra Streisand in “For Pete’s Sake,” but it obviously inflicted psychological damage and the 11-year-old beef wasn’t reliable for camera work after that.
ON MY TOE, THERE IS A FLEA, NOW HE’S CLIMBING UP ON ME, PAST MY STOMACH, PAST MY NOSE, ON MY HEAD WHERE MY HAIR GROWS — Thought you saddlepals could use a little children’s song to make the time go by. Anywho. Warm weather, preceded by rain, was blamed for a huge infestation of fleas in the SCV. Veterinarian S.H. Clark noted it was one of the worst years in memory and the little bloodsuckers were going after every mammal in the valley, humans included.
MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE CHP — A local officer pulled over a car with four young men in it for driving erratically. When the CHiPster sauntered over, ticket book out, he noticed the driver had an open beer can wedged between his feet. The driver went before the judge at Newhall Municipal with the defense it wasn’t his beer, he didn’t know whose beer it was nor did he know how the beer got there. Are you sitting down? The judge sided with him and threw out the charges.
NOVEMBER 14, 1986
US vs. THE COMMIES — We were attacked by the Soviet Union on this date. A U.S.S.R. rocket booster, launched two months earlier, burned up in the atmosphere over the SCV and Antelope Valleys. The giant red flaming ball looked like a giant airplane exploding in mid-air.
THE PEOPLE OF VAL VERDE GLOW GREEN IN THE DARK? — The county again was eyeballing us as the red-headed stepchild. But a geologist’s report saved Oso and Potrero canyons behind Magic Mountain from being turned into a toxic waste dump. The soil was too porous.
ALAS, ALL GREAT THINGS END SOME DAY — The last time Canyon High lost a football game, it was a wet evening in September of 1983. They lost to Notre Dame, 7-0. Canyon’s 46-game winning streak was finally snapped on Nov. 7, 1986, in a stunning 21-20 loss to Antelope Valley. The Cowboys fought back from a 20-0 deficit to score three touchdowns in the 4th quarter. With just 16 seconds left, Canyon went for the 2-point conversion. Quarterback Ken Sollom, from the pro set, rolled wide and tried to cut through a quickly evaporating seam. He was stopped 2 yards shy of the goal. The state record of 47 games, set by Cardinal Newman of Santa Rosa from 1972 to 1977, was intact. Still. The Cowboys had the eye of America on them with the longest winning streak in the nation.
• • •
Thanks so much for the dear company, saddlepals. It’s good medicine to ride with you. See you back here at the hitching posts in seven. Until then? ¡Vayan con Dios, amigos y Feliz Navidad!
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.
