HISTORY OF THE SANTA CLARITA VALLEY
With Jerry Reynolds and co-host Tom Frew
PART 1: From Early Man to Beale's Cut
Series includes interviews with Ruth and Scott Newhall,
Carol and Frenchy Lagasse, Melba Fisher and others Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Taped ca. 1986-87
In four parts | rt: 28:51 | total rt: 1:55:42
LINER NOTES: This video is a time capsule of SCV history as it was known and as it appeared around 1986, when this video was made.
While the concepts remain valid, new evidence has arisen in the last two decades to alter our understanding of certain details in the historical record.
For example: Mission records show that the estancia de San Francisco Xavier was probably never elevated to asistencia status;
Fremont Pass probably wasn't Beale's Cut — it's about a quarter-mile east; the original Southern Hotel didn’t last from 1878-88
(a contemporary account shows it opened in 1887 and burned down Oct. 23 of the same year);
John Powell wasn’t the very first justice of the Soledad (he was probably the second); and the Newhall Jail shown here was completed in 1906.
Also, many things have physically changed since the mid-1980s; for example, the Mitchell adobe schoolhouse was moved from
Canyon Country to Heritage Junction Historic Park in Newhall; the Western movie streets of Melody Ranch have been rebuilt;
the population has roughly doubled; and the people of Santa Clarita formed a city.
Twenty years from now, the history we’re writing today will need correcting. And so it goes.
