We’ve all manner of interesting vistas ahead this morning. There’s a novel way to catch speeders, hippies and one of the sweetest send-offs into the hereafter up Sloan Canyon. This one’s a pretty interesting trail ride into yesteryear. Relax. Don’t step in gopher holes. Don’t let your horse step in gopher holes. Buy low, sell high. Don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys and I’ve got all kinds of other unasked-for advice you can hear on the other side of the vortex… (Pictured: Snow falls on cottonwoods)

WAY, WAY BACK WHEN —

• Just 161 years ago yesterday, the Governor of Alta California, in lieu of back wages and because they were pals, granted nearly 50,000 pristine acres of the Santa Clarita Valley to army officer Antonio del Valle. Can you imagine that happening today? Asking Gray Davis for the SCV and he saying yes?

• And just 128 years ago this very day, spinster and dime novelist Helen Hunt Jackson arrived at the Rancho Camulos and interviewed Blanca Yndart for research for her new book. It would eventually become a bestseller and turn the little ranch on what would later be Highway 126 into a major tourist attraction. The book would also be instrumental in bringing tens of thousands of easterners out to sunny Southern California. Title of the tome? “Ramona.”

• A century and 12 years back tomorrow, the Acton Post Office was founded. Rudolph Nickel was named first postmaster. Nickel was also the publisher/editor of the valley’s first major newspaper — The Acton Rooster. It still prints today. 

JANUARY 28, 1920 —

• Eggland, the big chicken farm that took up a good part of Happy Valley, placed third in the state egg-laying championships. Can you imagine, today, living next to 12 billion roosters?

• The Board of Supervisors signed some rather crafty legislation to stop speeders and cut the severely high death toll on the Ridge Route. Starting Feb. 4th, 1920, two motorcycle cops were stationed at each end of the narrow Ridge Route. Every motorist going north or south was stopped and given a slip of paper with the time stamped on it. If they made it to the other end of the Ridge Route at a rate of speed greater than 15 mph, they were ARRESTED. That practice would eventually be practiced for motorists driving through Newhall to the San Fernando Valley.

JANUARY 28, 1930 —

• Victor York on this date was fined for drilling an oil well in Placerita Canyon without a permit.

• Big rains delayed the grading and oiling of our roads. Roadmaster Erwin was in charge of taking out the bumps and filling in the holes after rainstorms. When I lived in Placerita Canyon, it wasn’t that long ago when we oiled our dirt road to keep the dust down. You know, if you pour the oil deep enough, you might even be able to catch a few extra horses…

• Local work crews were also busy cleaning up and trimming after an earlier snowstorm broke hundreds of branches of trees in the valley.

• Next time you think YOU have a commute, think of the poor Melling couple. Mr. E.H. ran the airport here and his wife was a teacher in Upland. They would both fly back and forth to be with one another.

JANUARY 28, 1940 —

• Depending on how you look at it, Charlie Brannen was either very, very lucky. Or, very, very unlucky. On this date, Charlie drove his car to a desolate Santa Clarita canyon and pulled under an ancient oak tree. He hooked up a hose from his exhaust pipe and ran it to the front seat  of his car, flooding the interior with poisonous monoxide gas. Problem was, he ran out of gas and got just enough of Death’s Perfume to make him sick. Worse, he was about 10 miles to the closest civilization and had to walk.

• Five hunters nearly — and unintentionally — met Charlie Brannen’s fate on the same day. They had pulled over to catch a nap in the pre-dawn cold of Agua Dulce. Problem was, their old clunker had a leak in the floor boards and the inside of their car filled with monoxide. A passing and alert motorist saw the smoking car and pulled the men to safety. (HISTORICAL INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE FOOTNOTE: We don’t have as many carbon monoxide suicides today because of unleaded gas. Word is it’s almost impossible to die from inhaling it.)

• The Curse of Newhall Elementary continued. The little elementary school had been plagued by fire since its inception, burning completely to the ground four times. On this date, custodian J.L. McIntyre was severely burned when he came in to light the 6th grade furnace. It blew up. The roof separated from the building and the walls bulged off their foundations.

• Teen-ager Harold Kerbat walked away from his red stunt plane’s crash landing in Saugus. Kerbat had been buzzing buildings all morning and nearly clipped the roof of several buildings before crash landing in a grassy field. The same-described plane had been blamed the week before for buzzing homes and businesses in the San Fernando Valley. Kerbat just walked away from the crash, got into the car of a friend and drove off, leaving the wreckage for someone else to clear.

JANUARY 28, 1950 —

• We had a communication explosion here a half-century back. There were 177 new telephones added to the SCV, bringing the grand total to, ching-ching-ching, 1,263. Skip Newhall has more cell phones all by himself than that.

• Bertha May Sloan, one of the most beloved citizens to ever grace the Santa Clarita, died at her home in Sloan Canyon. She and her husband folks called Father Sloan (no Catholic jokes, please) homesteaded in the canyon that still bears their name back in 1910. They earned the nicknames Mother and Father for all the foster children they had cared for over the years. Are you sitting down? The total of the kids they took in was 380. They had 11 of their own. Bertha nickname was well-earned. She left a note, on ruled paper and written in pencil, about the miracle of life resurrecting in the fields and hills of Sloan Canyon, “wearing shining mantles of greenery.” She wrote of the budding leaves and fruit, of the songs of larks in the meadow, of the cry of a newborn sheep.

• Interestingly, when Bertha’s husband died a few years earlier, there was a rather unusual occurrence at his funeral. Father Sloan was a renowned beekeeper. When they lowered his casket into the ground, a swarm appeared out of nowhere, alighted on the flowers for a few minutes, then flew away. 

JANUARY 28, 1960 —

• They must have made their snowballs with heavy water. Three teens were arrested north of Castaic after they threw snowballs at a Santa Fe bus. The windshield was cracked in two places and the bus nearly swerved off the road. 

JANUARY 28, 1970 —

• History’s circular. How many times have we said that? Hmm. Those first two sentences seemed to be an unintentional zen joke. Anyway. On this date, Hart superintendent C.T. Haan began discussions on how to solve all the overcrowding in all three of the valley’s junior high schools. Well. We sure fixed that 40 years later.

• Ditto with the item above, the board of the Upper Santa Clara Valley Water Agency went to war with Newhall Land and Farming over usage.

• A local newspaper launched a new entertainment column. It was called: “Is This Artist A Hippie?” I mean, at some level, aren’t we all? 

JANUARY 28, 1980 —

• Justice is not only blind. Sometimes, it’s pretty stupid. Richard Schindler received a 9-year prison sentence and $30,000 fine for defrauding SCV investors in his Ponzi scheme. Michael Jernigan, who murdered a popular local teacher and shot a convenience store clerk as he pleaded for his life, was given six years. 

Well saddlepals. Here we are, back in this complicated 21st century. I vote we get together and do this again, same time, same West Ranch Beacon. Until next Thursday, I dearly wish that you vayan con Dios, amigos! 

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.com next week.