(Photo caption: He was an up and coming hot star in Hollywood, with rolls in Westerns, Star Trek and even 2001, A Space Odyssey. Gary Yurosek played in the same Hart High backfield in 1955 with future Minnesota Vikings quarterback, Joe Kapp. You might know Mr. Yurosek by his screen name: Gary Lockwood. Oh. Those aren’t Gary’s real eyes. One of his more famous rolls was playing a good captain captured by aliens in a first season Star Trek episode.)
What do you say? A little time ride through the snow sound OK to you?
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN —
— Ignacio del Valle had a happy new year 169 years ago. He drew claim to the Camulos Ranch portion of the Rancho San Francisco.
— Eight years later, in 1850, Manly and Rogers arrived at the Del Valle Ranch, begging for help for their stranded wagon train party in faraway Death Valley. The del Valles would send a big posse to bring the settlers to the SCV where many of them stayed.
DECEMBER 30, 1920 —
— Local silent superstar — NOT Bill Hart — Harry Carey starred in the new hit flick, “Blue Streak McCoy.” Carey had that huge ranch up San Francisquito Canyon he partially homesteaded and turned into one of the state’s premier lodgings and resting spots.
DECEMBER 30, 1930 —
— It was built in 1912 and was reported to be the largest water tank in California. The big redwood holding barrel in Happy Valley had a capacity of 350,000 gallons. It was torn down 80 years back and moved closer to present-day Hart Park so Newhall Water Company could build a new tank. Upon inspection, local engineers noted there wasn’t one rotten board and only a thin layer of residue was found at the bottom of the tank. The company used the same boards, saving themselves hundreds of dollars, and just rebuilt the tank with the old lumber.
— Electricity for the average joe and jane was still relatively new. Output was noted in horsepower, not megawatts. Southern California Edison only had 427,000 customers with about 1,000 in the SCV.
DECEMBER 30, 1940 —
— You just didn’t want to lay your eyes, or, for that matter, anything else on the husband of Mrs. Margaret Tortorici, co-owner of the Dixie Diner in Castaic. Convinced her husband was having an affair with a former waitress, one Miss Johnny Morgan, Mrs. Tortorici showed up at Johnny’s new place of employ in Hollywood on New Year’s Eve. Margaret slashed Johnny’s face with a razor, yelling out: “I’ve been a sap long enough.” It took 28 stitches to close the wounds. Mrs. T was arrested for attempted murder.
— Right off the bat, Signal editor Fred Trueblood had to start off the new year with a correction and apology. Seems Fred ran a small item noting that the Red Cross was looking for “sewers” for the war effort. He duly noted that “sewers” was not exactly the appropriate term when describing volunteer women and promised to use the word, “sewists.”
— We were just giddy with progress. In reviewing construction of 1940, there were 10 — count ‘em — 10 new homes built all year. We seem to throw them up by the hundreds on a weekly basis now. Cost of all new construction in the SCV for 1940? A whopping $280,000 and that included $80,000 for the new Newhall Elementary building.
DECEMBER 30, 1950 —
— Mrs. Mary Patrick came back from Hollywood a little richer. The Race Street resident competed on the hit TV game show, “Queen for a Day.”
— One of the largest road projects ever undertaken on this planet was underway. The widening of Highway 99 from a narrow, treacherous road to a modern four-lane freeway was underway. Hundreds of millions of cubic yards of earth were moved, bridges contracted and mountains blown away to accommodate the highway. Some of the explosions, coupled with the fierce winds that terrorized what used to be called, “Piru Gorge,” sent huge dust clouds darkening the sky for miles and sometimes cutting visibility to zero.
— Hobo Alex Walker of Oregon was just 25 years old and met with a horrific death. He was bumming a ride on a freight train. We don’t know if he passed out, fell asleep, fell or was pushed, but somehow, he slipped out of a freight car. His legs were still caught on the car and his head was nearly missing from hitting the underneath of the car. The corpse barely resembled anything human after miles of being dragged along the Saugus rails.
— Heavy equipment operator Rex Parks lost his leg working to make that road safer. His bulldozer was on a steep incline, hit a rock and flipped. It landed on Rex’s leg and he had to have what was left amputated.
— Groundbreaking for the construction of the Henry Mayo Newhall Community Auditorium occurred 60 years ago. Folks call it the Hart Auditorium because it’s on the Hart High campus. But actually, the hall was built for the community and was built in part by funds from Newhall Land & Farming Co. It was supposed to be called the Newhall Auditorium but then there was confusion because of the Newhall Elementary Auditorium down the street a couple of blocks.
DECEMBER 30, 1960 —
— The CHP put up roadblocks to try and catch the random drunk driver New Year’s Eve, 1960. They caught 166 of them. Still, we had one traffic death and 14 accidents on New Year’s weekend.
— Mr. and Mrs. John Yurosek were mighty proud of their son, Gary. The Hart High grad had motored over the hill to Hollywood a year earlier to try and make fame and fortune as an actor. Young Yurosek landed a few rolls, then signed a contract with 20th Century Fox and earned a part in the Natalie Wood movie, “Splendor in the Grass.” He went on to make several motion pictures, starring with Henry Fonda, Vincent Price and many famous names. The former Hart football star, on the urging of a producer friend, Josh Logan, took on a stage name, using Logan’s middle name. You might know the former Mighty Indian as, “Gary Lockwood.”
DECEMBER 30, 1970 —
— The Newhall Oil Refinery was sued by 35 individuals for $3.5 million. A brush fire had started on the grounds and spread through the hills of Newhall to Chatsworth, burning down several houses.
— It was most Grinch-like. On Christmas Eve, someone broke into the Sprouse-Ritz dime story on the corner of Market and San Fernando Road. They stole $250 in large bills, but, for some strange reason, left another $600 in smaller bills behind.
JANUARY 4, 1974 —
— A blizzard hit the Santa Clarita, dumping up to two feet of snow in spots of the valley floor. Daytime visibility dropped to nearly zero and the area was paralyzed. Some 14,000 SCV students were given the unheard of “Snow Day.” Hundreds of commuters couldn’t get home and had to turn back, spending the night at their offices or in hotels. One local was surprised when he went for a doctor’s appointment in the sunny San Fernando Valley and couldn’t get home because of, yes, a blizzard.
DECEMBER 30, 1980 —
— Mrs. Lyda Ragusa won a 25-year battle with the Army. Her husband, retired Major Vincent Ragusa, had been just 2,000 yards away from an atomic bomb test in Nevada in 1955. He died a few years later of leukemia, which doctors linked to his proximity to the A-bomb. Mrs. Ragusa was awarded the pension she had so long been denied.
— We had the warmest Christmas day on record — 85 degrees in downtown Newhall.
• — • — • — •
In my line of work, time traveling, I get to do this quite often. That would be to say, “See you next year.” Of course, this is literally quite true. I’ll see you in the year 2011 with another exciting Time Ranger adventure. Not to fret, saddlepals. It’s just a day away. Vayan con Dios, amigos!