(Photo: This SI cover chap played at Hart High in the 1950s…)
FEBRUARY 3rd, 1920 —
• This item sprang from the Jan. 30, 1920 front page of The Mighty Newhall Signal: “There should be more sociability shown among the people of our beautiful burg to newcomers. A party told us the other day that he had been here a year and did not know five people in town and that it got pretty lonesome for he and his wife.” Hmmm. There were only about 500 people in the valley then. Maybe we were insular.
• Henry Clay Needham, one of the 20th century’s most influential and our only serious presidential candidate, was certainly a Hard Luck Harry. He was thrown from his horse and seriously injured. He was butted by a goat and spent six months in bed. He got food poisoning the morning of his Prohibitionist Party’s nomination and couldn’t make it to the stage to accept. On this date, he had an operation to loosen muscles in his legs.
FEBRUARY 3rd, 1930 —
• Historian A.B. Perkins and the local Kiwanis began work on a marker for Placerita Canyon, at the Walker Ranch, to commemorate the discovery of gold by Francisco Lopez in 1842.
• This one really made the local residents chomp their lips. The city of Los Angeles announced plans to build a reservoir and dam up Bouquet Canyon. Folks were most uneasy about another dam up one of our canyons, what with the one in San Francisquito bursting not even two years earlier and killing 500 souls.
• On this date, the street names changed. The Board of Supervisors signed papers authorizing part of Spruce Street to be renamed San Fernando Road.
• Two monster trucks hauling equipment to Powerplant 1 up San Francisquito got stuck so deep in the mud, two huge construction tractors couldn’t pull them out. The trucks were left blocking the road for a few days until the rain cleared.
• You know, it seems like eons since it snowed last here in the SCV. Luckily we can time travel to 1930 when we had a pretty nice snowfall in the valley.
FEBRUARY 3rd, 1940 —
• Nearly 10 years later to the day her husband passed away, former Signal owner, publisher and editor Blanche Brown died, alone, in a nursing home. She had been spending her last years, suffering from a long illness while living in a Tujunga rest home. Born in Vermont, she moved to Oregon and met her future husband Ed. They married, moved to Newhall in 1919 and started this very newspaper. Ed died in 1920 and she ran The Signal until 1925. Blanche was nicknamed, “Peanuts,” by the local kids because of her affinity for health foods. She ran the Newhall Library for nine years. She died leaving just one relative, a cousin, Mrs. Sidney Bunker, of Westwood Hills, Mass.
• Two local boxers, Al Meyers of Saugus and Jackie Water of Newhall, ironically battled each other in a middleweight fight in El Segundo. Although Meyers was knocked down 17 times in the 10-rounder, it was called a draw. Hmmm. Wonder if the boxers carpooled…
• On this date, movie legend Harry Carey and family was given a huge send-off at the Saugus train station. The family left their big San Francisquito Ranch to move to New York City. Harry was returning to his first love, the Broadway stage. The ranch was left in the hands of a caretaker, who cared for all the horses, burros, dogs and cats. The Navajos who help run the ranch moved back to New Mexico and Arizona. Carey had tears in his eyes when he waved good-bye and said: “I’ll be back for the Newhall Rodeo.”
• The old Dullin Ranch in Placerita Canyon was sold. The Dullins produced some of the finest thoroughbreds in California. The houses were too old to be remodeled and were torn down by the new owners. The fields were enclosed by Kentucky-style fences and dozens of new stables were constructed. The ranch had been purchased by W.C. Gaffers, of the Gaffers & Sattler appliance partnership. The pair had 10 regular racing horses at Santa Anita.
• This sure isn’t news or history, but it’s a great line. Seems a man was overheard asking a local vet where he could buy 30,000 ants and 200 mice. The vet asked why. The man said his lease expires on the house he was renting and he was supposed to leave the place in the exact same condition he found it.
FEBRUARY 3rd, 1950 —
• Locals spoke against the growing menace of hog ranches here in the SCV. One person noted that the stench had grown so great, they had to cancel Sunday church services.
• Trucking executive Henry Sherman received one of the harshest hunting violation sentences ever imposed locally. Judge Art Miller found Sherman guilty of “Spotlight” — the cowardly art of shining high-powered lights at animals at night to stun them into being still. Sherman, drunk, had shot a fawn in such a fashion and was caught in the act by two local game wardens. Sherman started a fist fight with the pair and, “got a flashlight bent over his ear for his trouble.” He was sentenced to spend a full 45 days in jail AND pay a $250 fine, no bargaining.
• Idiot Hunters, Part II: Castaic rancher Ed Adkins found a pregnant cow dead and skinned on his ranch. Hunters using bows and arrows killed the livestock at close range. The 1100-pound cow was valued at $230.
• The grueling trial for the estate of Wm. S. Hart continued. Young Bill Hart Jr. spent six days testifying and was grilled by the defense. One of the key points of testimony was regarding whether Hart Sr. had fought on the side of the Sioux in the Battle of Little Big Horn AGAINST George Armstrong Custer and his forces. Hart Jr. said his dad told him as much. The defense pointed out that the elder Hart had said he had rode with the Indians who had rode against Custer but that this was in a historical reenactment in 1926. Syntax, syntax, syntax. Another highlight of the trial was that neither side could find key witness, Anna Lindt Bastues, Hart’s nurse in his final years. Mrs. Bastues had earlier said she would hightail it before the issue came to trial, not wanting to get involved in what was considered one of the biggest trials of the 20th century.
FEBRUARY 3rd, 1960 —
• Four Hart High cross countrymen — Bob McKee, Brad Duncan, Jim Levis and Ben Thomas — helped carry the Olympic torch being passed from the Los Angeles Coliseum to Squaw Valley. The boys ran 1/4-mile legs through Saugus.
FEBRUARY 3rd, 1970 —
• CalArts started recruiting students for its new Valencia campus. Tuition for that first year of classes? A whopping $2,500 a year. Someone of the day quipped, “So much for starving artists.” Wonder what they’d think of today’s tuition — over ten times that amount.
• The first-ever Hart-Canyon basketball game was 30 years ago this week. The Indians scalped the Cowboys, 69-31. Dave Bormann led Hart with 12 points and he would later cause head coach Fran Wrage to grow gray hairs. Bormann would eventually grow to nearly 7-feet-tall and would lead small colleges in both scoring and rebounding. Bormann’s dad took Dave out of school so he could play at a bigger high school with more visibility.
FEBRUARY 3rd, 1980 —
• The trial continued for Vampire Van killer Ronald Doyle Wilburn. On the stand, deputy medical examiner Joseph Choi testified that Wilburn had bludgeoned hitchhiker Mary Ann Linco to death with a hammer, but that she had taken as long as two hours to die. Wilburn had partially dismembered her body and had confessed to eating part of the girl, then wrapping her body in a carpet and hiding it in his van.
Well. That shimmering orb of energy in the distance is our portal back to the present. Time will again be relevant. Thanks for visiting the West Ranch Beacon. See you in seven days, amigos and vaya con Dios!
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. No. Really. Swear.