City of Santa Clarita Visitor Guide : Page 7
HISTORY Santa Clarita TIMELINE 450 Tataviam Indians settle in the upper Santa Clara River Valley. 1769 1842 Portola discovers the Newhall Pass. Oak of the Golden Dream– Francisco López makes California’s first authenticated gold discovery on March 9, 1842 in Placerita Canyon. 1862 Beale’s Cut is created as a stagecoach pass. It is considered a significant technological and physical feat consisting of breaching the former impassable geographic barrier of the San Gabriel and Santa Susana Mountain ranges and it remains as the only physical and cultural feature of its kind in the entire Los Angeles Basin. 1872 The Sulphur Springs School District is founded under the direction of Col. T. F. Mitchell with an enrollment of 10 children. VisitSantaClarita.com 1875 Henry Mayo Newhall buys Rancho San Francisco (named in honor of Francisco Lopez, the man credited with discovering gold in California, years before the discovery that precipitated the California Gold Rush), 47,000 acres for $90,000. 1876 Charles Alexander Mentry brings in California’s first commercially viable oil well to Pico Canyon. Mr. Mentry’s discovery well is the longest continually producing well in the world and remains a California State historic landmark. 1876 The San Fernando Tunnel (joining the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys) is 7,000 feet long. It is the 3rd longest tunnel in the US when it is completed July 14, 1876. 1887 The Saugus Café, originally named the Saugus Eating House, is opened. They have served everyone from D.W. Griffith, John Wayne and Chief of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, William Mulholland, to Clark Gable and Gary Cooper and becomes LACounty’s oldest continually operating restaurant, legendary for its huge menu and bountiful meals at reasonable prices in a “down home” atmosphere. 1909 1919 1921 First car travels through Beale’s Cut. Newhall Signal newspaper is established and is still in publication today. William S. Hart, star of many silent western movies, purchases a ranch house and surrounding property. He builds a 22 room mansion which today houses Hart’s collection of western art, Native American artifacts, and early Hollywood memorabilia and is open to the public. 1928 On March 12, 1928, one of California’s worst catastrophes occurs when the dam’s 185-foot high concrete wall crumples and collapses, sending billions of gallons of raging flood waters down San Francisquito Canyon, about five miles 7
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