(rshsdepot) Saugus, CA

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_home.com>]

HERITAGE JUNCTION STANDING AS SILENT WITNESS TO HISTORY

The Daily News of Los Angeles...12/26/2001

(links below)

SANTA CLARITA - There's a little corner of Santa Clarita where time stands
still, where, except for the occasional whistle from a passing commuter
train, there's no sign it's a part of one of the fastest growing cities in
California.

There's a collection of old buildings here at Heritage Junction, where the
occupants long gone witnessed the rise of the railroad, Prohibition, mission
life and school marms.

This treasure of eight houses and other buildings, relocated from all over
the Santa Clarita Valley, tells the story of a town that long ago abandoned
oil and agriculture as leading industries and evolved into a city known for
endless housing tracts and high-tech roller coasters.

"There are great stories attached to every building," said Gerry Sokolowicz,
a member of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, which runs Heritage
Junction. "These old buildings have seen a lot of history."

The centerpiece of Heritage Junction is the Saugus Train Depot, which opened
113 years ago, a few miles west on a dusty highway now known as San Fernando
Road. There, beginning in 1887, passengers waited to board the Union Pacific
trains that swept through town. The depot was shuttered in 1978, and moved
two years later to Newhall to be preserved.

It now houses a museum filled with relics of days gone by - among them old
railroad artifacts, some American Indian items plucked from the lands once
claimed by the Tatavium tribe and even some old court records from the days
when horse thievery was as common as today's carjackings.

The 102-year-old Mogul engine 1629 sits nearby. The Mogul, built in 1900,
has been at Heritage Junction since 1982 and sat in rusting disrepair,
though restoration is under way and nearly complete.

The 1865 Mitchell Adobe is the oldest building at Heritage Junction. It was
once home to the pioneering Mitchell family in the Sulphur Springs area of
what is now Canyon Country. Schoolchildren gathered in the kitchen of the
adobe for classes, and later the structure was used as a ranch man's home.

Destroyed by a developer in 1986, the adobe brick was transported to the
junction in pieces and the old structure recreated by volunteers.

The Kingsburry House was home to several occupants from 1878 to 1943 when
Ruth and Charles Kingsburry bought the two-bedroom house, sans kitchen. It
was expanded over the years with an additional bedroom, indoor bathroom and
a kitchen. A favorite among visitors is the 82-year-old Edison House, built
in 1919 by Southern California Edison Co. Assistant Edison Patrolman Raymond
Starbard was living there in 1982 when the St. Francis Dam collapsed and is
credited with sounding the alarm.

"It's such a hoot to see kids go through," said Pat Saletore, a historical
society board member who has led many tours. "They love stories with a
little excitement like the dam. I told some Cub Scouts about the dam
disaster ... all these people died ... a wall of water 150 feet came in the
middle of the night. You can see them forming pictures in their heads.
They're standing there with their mouths open."

Saletore believes his talks are successful when the kids on tour come back
with their parents to share the history of their hometown.

She loves the ghost stories that come with these old haunts - particularly
the "lady in blue" that some visitors swear they have seen in the Newhall
Ranch House, built in the 1890s and occupied by members of the pioneer
Newhall family.

A psychic visiting the two-story Victorian met the spirits of a boy named
Timothy and a cowboy named Rory, Saletore said.

"For good stories, the Ranch House is the best because of the spooks," she
said.

If the walls could talk at the Pardee House, they would recall the Good
Templars - Prohibitionists - who met there, the oil man Ed Pardee who lived
there, actor Tom Mix and the movies he filmed there and the Pacific
Telephone Co. operators who took over in 1946 providing Newhall with its
first telephone exchange. In more modern times, the Pardee House was the
headquarters for the local Boys & Girls Club and then the office of the
Newhall-Saugus-Valencia Chamber of Commerce.

The smallest structures were actually amusements within Robert E. Callahan's
Mission Village, which were relocated in 1963 to the northeastern Santa
Clarita Valley from Culver City. Restoration was recently completed at the
tiny Ramona Chapel, a nonsectarian, steepled church barely big enough for 10
people inside. And the Callahan School House, built in 1927, was
representative of turn-of-the century school houses of the Old West.

"These are buildings that tell stories about our history in the Santa
Clarita Valley," Saletore said. "A long time after you and I are gone,
they'll still be here for our great-grandchildren's grandchildren."

Saugus Web sites:
http://employees.oxy.edu/jerry/saugdepo.htm
http://www.newhall.k12.ca.us/newhall/scvwebms/saugustrain.htm

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