This was a good place, but all these people moved in.

Dan Troncale worked in the family dairy and in farming and construction until he retired to raise beef cattle on the grasslands near Castaic. He expected an occasional drought and unpredictable beef prices, but his biggest problem turned out to be the houses and freeways, which are consuming all the available pastureland.

This was all undeveloped land when we came here in 1921. There was one little old gas station, a post office and a little old grocery store, no freeways. We came here with a horse and buggy.

There were only about three families in Castaic. There was us, the Kings and Billy Rose. That was it. People would come in from the rural areas like Saw Mill Mountain and Hughes Lake.

There was an old bootlegger on top of that mountain over there who used to come down with a team of horses at any hour of the night. He’d throw his moonshine in that little old wagon, cover it with straw and go clear to Newhall and peddle it.

There was another old man who used to make moonshine, and he would come off that old hill on that narrow road above Hughes Lake with his Model T Ford loaded with whiskey and go peddle it. They throwed him in jail more times, but he kept getting out.

I remember during the Depression days there was really a drought. And we didn’t have too much money. When you had a bunch of cattle, you had to buy hay for them. One year in the ‘30s we bought over $10,000 worth of hay. What were you going to do? You had all that stock. We made it through.

Back in the ‘30s you couldn’t even go find a job. And if you found one, you’d work for a dollar and a half or two dollars a day, 10 hours a day. You’d think the sun would never go down.

We used to plow with horses. You’d walk behind those old walking plows, and if you hit a rock, it would throw you clear across the field. Now you jump on a tractor, hit the starter, and you’re gone. When you worked six or eight head of mules or horses, you had to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning and go feed them, throw the harness on them, go out to the fields and hitch them up and plow with them. How many guys do that now? They wouldn’t know which way to hook up on a horse.

A Model T Ford was the first automobile we ever bought. We thought it was really something. But if we had to go anywhere in rough country, we just saddled up a horse. I remember when you could ride for miles on horseback and never run into a car. Now look at it.

I’ve got about 75 cattle now. Can’t run too many of them. I’m retired, but I’m still working, for myself. I had the old Alexander place leased, and they started putting all those houses in there, and I lost all of that. It was an old homestead. Before all these freeways went in here, it used to go clear back to the old Ridge Route. They sold the last little piece off to a tract, and that’s the end of that.

I’m down to about a thousand acres. I used to have around 2,500 to 3,000 acres for grazing. I run some cattle up between the two freeways here in Marple Canyon. It starts right down here by the corral in Castaic and runs all the way up there to five mile. The rest are over in Charlie Canyon. Marple Canyon is up for sale, too. I won’t have that for long if they sell it.

This was a good place, but all these people moved in. It’s getting too populated. They’ll probably level all these hills off and build houses on them. Look what’s happened in the last 10 years.

It’s a good clean life. I never did like the city. I used to go down there to deliver the cheese when my dad had a cheese factory. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I used to get headaches when I was there. There’s been smog there since Day 1. They’re trying to clean it up, but they never will. I didn’t like it. I still don’t like it.

I had some good years and I had some bad years. I always enjoyed cattle and farming. But anything can happen. You have a drought and you’re out of business. Like this year, I was about ready to sell the whole dang bunch. If we hadn’t got those rains, these cattle would all have been gone to town.