Top of the Halloween morn to you, saddleghosts and saddlegoblins. Hope this coming extra hour of sleep this coming Sunday morning refreshes you. We’ve got a rather interesting trail ride ahead, filled with killer trains, Billy the Kid (the real one), a rather oddball tombstone up Mint Canyon way and an actual and quite grisly vampire case here in the SCV.

There’s bears in the tire store, the Beatles and one major brushfire started by a crashed plane. Shall we mosey into the mystic?

WAY, WAY BACK WHEN —

— In the spirit of Halloween, tens of thousands of years ago, giant, ferocious saber-tooth tigers stalked the Santa Clarita, tearing cute little cave bunny rabbits to bits. Actually, local cowpoke Fat Jones dug up a complete saber tooth cat skeleton on his ranch back in the early 1920s.

— November 2, 1891 marked the founding of the Acton Water Works by Rudolph Nickel. No water vampires were ever reported. That we know of. Mwa ha. Mwa ha ha.

HALLOWEENISH, 1919 —

— The worst train wreck in Santa Clarita Valley history occurred in upper Canyon Country, south of Agua Dulce. Ten people were killed and 75 injured. Reports of the cause of the accident differed. Some witnesses said the Southern Pacific flyer was speeding to race a car. Others say the rails had become spread and the train simply derailed.

HALLOWEENISH, 1929 —

— A decade later, on the same date, cowboy R.R. Mundorff was struck and killed by a train at the Humphreys station. Mundorff was actually standing on the ramp and a large steel beam protruding from the engine nearly took his head off.

n Silent film superstar William S. Hart chatted with locals about his collection of historic sidearms. Hart had collected many handguns, some of them owned by famous bad men of the West. One such pistol had been owned by William H. Bonney — Billy the Kid Himself.

— We don’t know if the parents were sick with grief or had a dark sense of humor. A tombstone was spotted up in Mint Canyon. The inscription read: “Died, male; aged three months; unmarried.”

— Some of the local housewives were complaining about all the dust being raised along what would years later be Lyons Avenue. It was called Pico Canyon then and road crews were straightening it. Not paving it. Just straightening it.

— Back this week, 80 years ago, gasoline at Van’s Station was 17.5 cents a gallon. Amazingly, you could still buy gas here in the SCV for about 20 cents a gallon as late as the 1960s.

— Must have been a lot of USC fans living in the SCV. Several plane-loads of rooters took off from Newhall Airport to fly to Palo Alto for the game with Stanford.

HALLOWEENISH, 1939 —

— A local newspaper didn’t escape tricksters 60 Halloweens back. Someone soaped the newspaper’s windows. Some neighbors helped to scrape the soap off with razor blades. As times were tough, they kept the soap chips. Recycle, recycle, recycle…

— Actually, 1939 was a pretty hedonistic evening locally. Lots of windows were shattered by rocks. Street signs were uprooted and fences knocked over. All this despite a 9:30 youth curfew.

— Newhall Land and Farming lost 171 tons of hay in a big fire. That translated to $2052 in 1939 hay money.

HALLOWEENISH, 1949 —

— The pilot of a small, yellow airplane had but a few seconds to make a hellish choice: stay in his craft, crash and be burned alive or jump without a parachute. He picked the former. The crash in Haskell Canyon started a brush fired that lasted for four days and blackened 7,110 acres. Three firemen were seriously burned in the blaze and another three were injured. The pilot was a student, 21 years old, with just 20 hours of flight time.

— Hart was the only high school in town and Elberta McKissack was crowned as the first homecoming queen in SCV history. Now, we’ve got homecoming princesses coming out the wazoo.

HALLOWEENISH, 1959 —

— The Wm. S. Hart High School District was forced by recent state legislation to create mandatory corporal punishment policy.

— State rainfall records were released and it seems that the 1958-1959 year (to Sept. 30) was the fourth driest season in 50 years. I suspect we’re going to have a decent and then-some rainfall this 2009-2010 season…

NOVEMBER 1, 1963 —

— On this date, the community of Canyon Country was officially founded. It was also the first day of the first-ever Frontier Days.

HALLOWEENISH, 1969 —

— Civilization in the form of L.A. County Zoning Commission came to Mike’s Tire. On this date, they ordered Mike Cone, of Mike’s Tire on Soledad, to get rid of his pet 200-pound black bear that rested in a cage in front of his tire shop. The bear’s name was Ticia. I remember Mike fronted me four racing tires for my Alfa on just a handshake…

— A high school newspaper calling itself “The First Underground Newspaper In Hart High History” was distributed on campus. The one-page mimeographed sheet was called “The Torch of Truth” and was primarily an anti-Vietnam War paper. About 50 students were ordered the day the paper came out to remove black armbands, protesting the Vietnam War. A packed house of both pro and anti Vietnam War speakers took over the board meeting on this date. Small historical footnote, actually, The Torch was the area’s third underground paper. Hart had “The Organ” and “The Spicy Gazette” the year before.

— Bob Avant was the special guest at the Hart High Homecoming. Avant, a former Hart grad, was one of the first men in the world to high jump over 7 feet.

— Back in its swashbuckling days, The Mighty Signal printed an investigative piece, asking if Beatle Paul McCartney was dead. Locals seemed to think not. History bears them out.

NOVEMBER 2, 1976 —

— Canyon County — the move to break away from Los Angeles and make the entire Santa Clarita Valley its own personal self-governing entity — was defeated in a county-wide election. Memory serves me well, while it passed substantially locally, it was defeated 65-35 in the L.A. County-wide election.

HALLOWEENISH, 1979 —

— Judge Armand Arabian, the jurist presiding over the Vampire Van caper, was spotted carrying a full-grown parking meter into his office. When pressed why the hardware, Arabian said, “Lawyers come into a judge’s chambers and sit down. They usually don’t leave. So as they enter, I put a penny in the meter and tell them the flag will snap up when their time is up. It works.”

— While Newhall Land and Farming paid over $3 million in property taxes, their name appeared in the delinquent tax rolls. Seems they forgot to pay a bill for $4.96. Today, that’s not even one curled and feteching eyelash on Marlee Lauffer.

— The timing of history can be the oddest thing. It’s rare when trains kill people, but, again, on this date, Paul Wilson walked out of the Rendezvous bar, got into a fight then walked home along the railroad tracks. He was struck by a train and killed. So, we have train deaths on this date in 1919, 1929 and 1979. Do, be careful, crossing the tracks this Halloween weekend…

Well thanks so much for company on our trail ride through distant Halloweens. Odd though. Nothing too spooky except for those prehistoric saber tooth tigers wandering around what would later be condos. I guess that’s why we don’t go too far back in history. Sure looking forward to riding with you in a week. I’ll meet you right back here at the West Ranch Beacon. And until then, dear saddlepals, 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.