We’ve got vampires. We’ve got witches. We’ve got a perpetual motion machine and a Sand Canyon rancher who fought against Geronimo.
I guess I could just keep going on and on with the enticements, but what say we just saddle up and drift into the abyss?
WAY, WAY BACK WHEN —
• On January 15, 1875, Henry Mayo Newhall Himself purchased the huge Rancho San Francisco, formerly the Mission San Francisco. Hank’s property was pretty much the boundaries of the Santa Clarita Valley today. How’s that for a ranchette?
• Three years later, same day as above, the entire town of Newhall moved lock, stock and barrel from where Bouquet Junction/K-mart is today to about where 6th Street is. (SIDEBAR: Historian A.B. Perkins once referred to the original location of Newhall as the intersection of Seco and Bouquet.)
• The Newhall Post Office was established on this date with George Campton, the general store owner, as our first postmaster.
• And on January 17, 1915, the first Catholic Parish was dedicated at near Walnut and Lyons today. Of course, we’ve had a Catholic church of sorts operating here since the early 1800s.
JANUARY 21,1920 —
• A Dr. Stevenson (no relation to Stevenson Ranch) dug a mini lake on his property. The doc tunneled into the side of a hill and built a reservoir to catch rain water falling off both the hill and the roof of his home. Wonder how much he had to strain that water to make it pure?
• It’s amazing how much the face of the valley has changed this last century. The hill on Market Street was originally much higher. A local road crew knocked a few more feet off the top of the hill to make the grade less steep.
JANUARY 21,1930 —
• A motorist on this date was thrown from his car after he swerved to miss a slow-moving hay wagon. We don’t know if he landed on his rear end, but his name was W.D. Butt. Wonder if his second middle name was “40?”
JANUARY 21,1940 —
• Some foraging forestry men rediscovered the lost Perpetual Motion Machine of Los Angeles mayor Henry T. Hazard. Hazard had built this strange clock in 1920 in Oak Canyon, four miles west of Castaic. It was a steel wheel 60 feet in diameter, set in concrete and rotating on $250 ball bearings, powered only by the rotation of the earth. In theory, it was supposed to keep perfect time. The only problem was, the simplest breeze would send it spinning and you also had the problem of owls landing on it or squirrels giving it a twirl. The project was abandoned.
JANUARY 21,1950 —
• Sergeant Major Landalen Bluste, retired, celebrated his 90th birthday at his Sand Canyon ranch. Bluste was one of the army’s first heliographers (the guys who used mirrors to flash messages) in America. He had fought in World War I, the Spanish-American War and the Indian Wars. He was stationed in Company K of the 4th Regiment in Fort Huachuca, Arizona where he fought Geronimo (although not all by himself).
• They must have been thick glasses. Mrs. Ruth St. Julian didn’t notice she had crossed over the center divider and was driving on the wrong side of Highway 99. Drivers swerved to avoid her but she ended up tagging Albert DePorto pretty good, despite his efforts to avoid her. Seems Ruth had taken off her glasses to wipe them off with a Kleenex and didn’t notice as she was cleaning them that she was having a Mad Max Moment.
• Jim Pierce was the guest visitor at a Castaic Boy Scout meeting. Pierce played “Tarzan” in one the silent movie versions.
JANUARY 21,1960 —
• We’ve been hit pretty hard by the flu this winter and 50 years back, same thing. The epidemic had some schools and businesses reporting a 25 percent absentee rate.
• The old Mason Hall/Newhall Courthouse building was sold to Sherman Oaks businessman M.B. Luginbill for $2,500 cash. While there were Masons meeting here since 1880, they formed an official chapter in 1922. That old building is still there on Market Street, housing a hispanic video store and various offices.
JANUARY 21,1970 —
• We had another one of those special school bond elections 40 years back. A poll discovered that 50 percent of the registered voters had no idea there was an election coming up.
• CalArts withdrew its offer to add Dr. Herbert Marcuse to their faculty. Seems the good professor was a passionate Marxist and we don’t mean Groucho. Heck. If it were 2010, the guy would have a cabinet position.
• We had a rather strange sporting event on this date, three decades back. The Castaic Saddle Club and Viewfinders Motorcycle Club met to see which was faster — horse or motorbike. The horses won in every arena event. In fact, only one biker even finished in the money and that was fifth place. Some of you might know the 5th-place finisher — Dick Allen, later of Dick Allen motorcycles.
• Don Kloppenburg was named COC head football coach. Ask Andy Allensworth about the Kloppenburg family. No. Better. Ask his wife Chris to ask Andy about the Kloppenburg family.
• Canyon Country’s sixth-generation witch, Louise Heubner, had earlier been named Los Angeles County’s Official Witch at a Hollywood Bowl Halloween show. Months later, supervisor Eugene Debs tried to take the honor back. Heubner smilingly suggested that if he did, she would, “remove the sexual vitality from all of Los Angeles County.” Our own supervisor, Warren Dorn, called Debs “… an awful Indian giver” and “a grouch.” Perhaps Louise cast a spell on our 5th district representative?
• On this historic date, the Hart School District voted to allow girls in the local junior highs to wear pants to school. It was a first.
JANUARY 21,1980 —
• A 16-year-old Canyon Country youth survived after being blasted by 66,000 volts of electricity from a SoCal Edison power line he had been climbing. He had second and third-degree burns over his legs and his pants and underwear had been blasted completely off his body by the jolt.
• Norma Bush, owner of the Victory Trailer Park, lost her final appeal to keep her property open. VTP was the notorious Other-Side-O’-The-Tracks eyesore and health hazard on Pine Street.
• The jury was finally picked for the grisliest murder in SCV history. Ronald Doyle Wilburn had earned the nickname of the Vampire Van Killer for picking up a young female hitchhiker, murdering her then partially eating her remains.
• • •
Before we mosey off toward different horizons, I must offer an apology. Last week, I had a serious brain synapse misfire and called Canyon High linebacker Don Phillips, “Don Williams.” Must have been humming a cowboy tune in my head. Sorry to both Dons. That aside, thanks so much for the company and what say we try this again next Thursday, right here under the glow of The West Ranch Beacon?
John Boston is the valley historian. Go out and buy his book, Images of America, The Santa Clarita Valley, published by Arcadia. It’s at bookstores and retail outlets throughout the valley and makes a dandy present. Also be on the look-out. He’ll be coming out soon with a brand new fresh web and blog site, thebostonreport.net very soon.