C’mon. Hop up in the saddle. The air is free and we’ve got all the time in the world…
(CAPTION: On this date in 1981, my dear, dear buddy, Curtis Stone, was named Bass Player of the Year by the Academy of Country Music. The guy would later win an Grammy for his guitar playing. Today, he’s in Nashville, producing music and playing for the hit country band, Highway 101.)
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN —
— Back on May 31, 1891, the First Presbyterian Church in Newhall was founded by Rev. F.D. Seward. As the old joke goes, the church did so well, they haven’t had to form a Second Presbyterian Church…
MAY 26, 1921 —
— Ever watch Jay Leno on The Tonight Show and he shares those oddball wedding announcements in America’s papers linking two strange names of the betrothed? We’ve got a couple for you from 80 years back. A simple, big, bold headline announced the union of “QUEAR-PEER.” That’d be Ed Quear of Indiana hooking up with the popular and diminutive Saugus Elementary teacher, Vivian Peer.
— Funny how your name ends up in the paper and sometimes it’s good news and sometimes it’s bad. On this date, Gus Le Brun won the local pool shooting tournament at Moore’s parlor. He took home a $15 silk shirt as first prize. A few years later, Le Brun would make the headlines by murdering the sheriff, Ed Brown. LeBrun, I believe, is still buried at the Mitchell cemetery. Well. At least a good part of him. The sheriff’s deputy and friend, Jack Pilcher, shot LeBrun 18 times after he killed Ed Brown.
— Our local cowboy celluloid hero (and former rodeo star) Buck Jones debuted his latest movie, “Get Your Man” at the Cody Theatre in San Fernando. Locals motored down to watch the silent flick, famous in its time for having a fight scene filmed in an actual thunderstorm.
— We had a big rain on this date, rather hefty and late for nearly being June. The farmers were grateful.
MAY 26, 1931 —
— History is circular, we’ve said so often. Right now, the city is attempting to bring some aesthetics to the valley by regulating signs and billboards. Eighty years ago this day, Charles Harbey, in charge of highway maintenance for this area, was busying himself removing eyesore signs and billboards in the valley. Guess they must’ve popped back up like weeds…
— How’s this for starved for news? This story, verbatim, appeared in the May 21st issue of The Formerly Mighty Signal: “Miss Gwen McAllister went swimming at Power Plant No. 2 once evening last week.” That’s the story. The whole darn story. Stop the presses.
MAY 23, 1941 —
— The American Theatre (currently, the American Legion Hall on Spruce) held its grand opening 70 years back. Silent screen superstar William S. Hart, who donated the land and money to build the movie house, was at the dedication. Interestingly, there was an Army serviceman in the crowd. Hart thanked him for his loyalty to his country, then learned he was a full-blooded Sioux and Hart, who had grown up with the Native Americans, spoke at length to the soldier in Sioux. Hart’s epic flick, “Tumbleweeds,” was the first movie shown at the American, followed by “Here Comes Happiness” and “The Earl of Puddleston.”
MAY 26, 1941 —
— We were quietly preparing for World War II. The Forest Service, county fire department, American Legion and Boy Scouts created 162 strategic staging points in the national forests around here to fight arson by foreign agents.
— Jack Orsburn moseyed over to the Foley Ranch to see about buying a horse. He rode the steed around a bit. The steed did not take to Jack and ran him into a tree. Jack suffered a busted chest and, yes, he didn’t buy the horse.
— Helm Schmidt Jr. got himself a brand new 1941 Oldsmobile. Helm bought it the hard way. He flew to Detroit to get it. His family owned a big cattle ranch and much of Canyon Country. Their spread was so big, they had their own air port.
MAY 26, 1951 —
— Hattie Madden celebrated her 90th birthday and what was the one thing she remembered most in life? Being a little girl and hearing a pistol shot. Holding her mother’s hand and running from the theater. Scared, crying, watching soldiers frantically searching for an actor named John Wilkes Booth. Hattie had been at Ford’s Theater the night Abraham Lincoln was shot. Hattie became a world-famous fashion designer.)
— Memorial Day weekend, a half century back, The Formerly Mighty Signal moved its offices from San Fernando Road to the little redwood enclave on 6th Street. The new post office would take over the old Signal building. We’d stay in those 6th Street offices until our move to Creekside on Sept. 8th, 1986.
— On this date, the Secretary of the Interior set aside 35,200 acres in the mountains beyond Fillmore as a condor refuge. The land was withdrawn from national mining designation. There were an estimated 100 of the giant buzzards in 1951 in Ventura County.
MAY 26, 1961 —
— We make fun of Palmdale all the time but 50 years ago, they had the last laugh. The Falcons knocked Hart out of the CIF quarterfinals, 6-5 in extra innings.
MAY 26, 1971 —
— We almost had a brand new city to the north. It was to be called, Granada — a 525-acre planned municipality built by Occidental Oil & Land just below Vasquez Rocks. It was actually a fancy name for a giant mobile home park. with a population of about 4,000 for moderate income families. Occidental had hoped to attract cheap manufacturing businesses to relocate to Agua Dulce. Interesting concept, building the work camp first and then trying to go find a business for the workers to work at. It was never built.
— The Compton Four were convicted on this date. The four young men confessed they had driven from their home in Compton a year earlier for the expressed purpose of killing some white people. They succeeded, murdering two Canyon Country youths and scrawling “PIG” on the dead boys’ car. The first trial resulted in a hung jury along racial lines. Judge George M. Dell oversaw the retrial — without a jury. He gave two of the four 2nd degree murder verdicts and two others from Compton accessory to murder.
MAY 29, 1971 —
— On this date, 40 years ago, the mega-amusement park and answer to Disneyland, Magic Mountain, opened. Adult admission was $5 and kids were admitted for $3.50. The sky was gloomy, by the way.
MAY 26, 1981 —
— Any economics majors out there? The value of retail goods that were sold in the SCV doubled from the same date five years earlier. We sold $326.6 million worth of goodies in 1980 — up from $167.8 million in 1975.
See you saddlepals the first Thursday of June next week with a brand new Time Ranger adventure right here under the warming glow of The West Ranch Beacon. Until then, vayan con Dios, amigos!