Historic Pass Linking North, South in 1800s to Be Restored

Beale’s Cut, the historic passageway through the mountains between the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys dug by soldiers with picks and shovels in 1862, has fallen victim to illegal dumping, vandalism and neglect in recent years.

Old mattresses, broken furniture and rusty car parts litter the pathway that leads to the landmark. Most of it is dumped by people unwilling to pay the fees at the nearby Sunshine Canyon Landfill, a county official said.

Carved by a group of soldiers from Fort Tejon led by Gen. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, the 90-foot-deep by 80-yard-long slash opened up the trade route between Los Angeles and Northern California at the height of the Gold Rush days.

At the top of the dirt pathway, which begins at a turnout on Sierra Highway just north of the Golden State Freeway, are two cement structures that once held bronze plaques noting the historic significance of the spot and the discovery of gold in Placerita Canyon. Vandals have stolen the bronze markers, worth about $900 apiece.

But now, after years of neglect, efforts to restore Beale’s Cut to its former prominence are under way.

“It deserves better,” said Betty Pember, the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society landmarks chairman. “Historically, it’s quite important.”

Fence to Be Erected

And within the next two weeks, at the urging of the historical society and Supervisor Mike Antonovich, Los Angeles County workers will erect a five-foot-high, chain-link fence around the entrance to Beale’s Cut.

The $5,000 fence will have a pedestrian entrance and a sliding gate for emergency access, said JoAnne Darcy, Antonovich’s field deputy.

Because part of the path to the monument is on private land, the county cannot remove the trash dumped there, said Jean Granucci, spokeswoman for the county Department of Public Works.

“It’s a high priority item with us,” she said. “We’re hoping to find some volunteers to clean up the rest.”

Beale’s Cut, through what once was known as Fremont Pass, is located approximately one-quarter mile up the dirt trail from the turnout on Sierra Highway about two miles southwest of San Fernando Road. It is bounded by Newhall Oil Refinery, Sierra Highway and the Antelope Valley Freeway.

Former Indian Trail

Before Beale’s men did their work, the passageway was an Indian trail, according to Jerry Reynolds, the historical society’s curator. The area became known as Fremont Pass in 1847 after Gen. John Charles Fremont rode through on the way to Campo Cahuenga in North Hollywood to sign the treaty that ended hostilities in California between the United States and Mexico.

Fremont and his men had to lead their horses over the all but impassable trail, Reynolds said. In the 1850s, Henry Clay Wiley erected a windlass (rope and pulley) to take wagons and stagecoaches down the mountain.

In 1862, Beale convinced the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to give him $5,000 to improve the road, which he did using U.S. Army labor and materials. After the passageway was complete, Reynolds said, Beale promptly set up a toll booth at its entrance, charging three cents a head for sheep and $2 for each stagecoach using the roadway.

Reynolds said that Beale, as U.S. surveyor general for California and Nevada, amassed the land that became Tejon Ranch. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln refused to reappoint Beale to that post, saying, “I will not have a surveyor who becomes monarch of all he surveyed,” according to historians.

Despite his motives, Reynolds said, Beale did a great service when he had his soldiers dig out the passageway between the two valleys.

“The cut served the Los Angeles area quite well,” Reynolds said.

Previously, wagons carrying goods to points north were forced to depend upon the more easily traversed Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County--a journey that took one to two weeks longer, Reynolds said.

Beale’s contract expired in 1883 and then the county took over the passageway. The first automobile to cross over the mountain in 1902 had to back up the cut, Reynolds said, to keep gasoline flowing to the engine.

After Sierra Highway, the road connecting the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, was built, Reynolds said, Beale’s Cut was used in many Western movies. A 1923 Tom Mix film, “Three Jumps Ahead,” shows Mix and his horse, Tony, making a leap across the cut.

In recent years, Reynolds said, Beale’s Cut has been “sort of crumbling away.”

“It’s been used as a trash dump for a long time,” he said. “It’s been cleaned out several times by groups from the Boy Scouts and YMCA. It was cleaned out just a year ago. Its seems to be a favorite place to dump garbage.”