Book Markets Tidbits of the Past : A History of the Valley From Roscoe to Rhoda

Northridge was once touted as “the horse capital of the world.” Tarzana-based Adohr Milk Farms, among the nation’s largest dairies in the 1940s, was named for founder Adam Merritt’s wife (Adohr is Rhoda spelled backward). And, until 1948, Sun Valley was called Roscoe, named after an infamous 19th-Century train robbery.

No one is sure whether Roscoe was the name of the robber, the train’s engineer or the brakeman who lived nearby. No matter. Upon learning the origin of the town’s name, a chagrined Chamber of Commerce decided to hold an election for a new one.

These are just a few of the historical tidbits found in the new book, “The San Fernando Valley--Then and Now.” Better suited for the coffee table than research library shelves, the volume is one of a handful of history books focused on the Valley.

“Most people don’t realize that the Valley has a history that starts before the American Revolution,” said co-author Larry D. Fried, who recently became director of marketing for the book’s publisher, Northridge-based Windsor Publications.

Development Traced

The 144-page book traces the Valley’s development from the days when the Chumash Indians were the area’s only inhabitants to the 1982 opening of the Simi Valley Freeway.

Fried, along with co-author Charles A. Bearchell, chronicled the adventures of Spanish explorers and Catholic missionaries who first settled the area. They also recounted the schemes of land speculators who made huge profits in buying inexpensive Valley property, subdividing the land and selling the smaller parcels to settlers.

About two-thirds of the book is devoted to short profiles of Valley communities, ranging from Burbank to Woodland Hills. Bearchell, a marketing professor at Cal State Northridge, said the format was chosen so readers could find sections on their community easily.

“Everybody cares about their ZIP code, about where they come from. When they pick up a book like this, the first thing they look for is their hometown,” Bearchell said.

Marketing instincts, rather than intellectual pursuits, led Bearchell and Fried to write the book. They came up with the idea in the mid-1970s when neither could find a history of the Valley. This led them to believe that they could successfully fill a niche with a popular history on the Valley.

Amateur Historians

For the next decade, the two marketing experts became amateur historians. In their spare time, they combed museum archives for scraps of information on the Valley. They discovered that good sources for Valley lore were local chambers of commerce and, surprisingly, the Automobile Club of Southern California.

“The Auto Club has an extensive private library,” Fried said. “Their guides and recommended tours were really helpful.”

Researchers easily documented the histories of Chatsworth, Burbank, Encino and San Fernando because these, and some other Valley communities, have strong historical societies or cultural monuments that have sparked studies of their history.

Tracing the backgrounds of such communities as Arleta and Granada Hills proved to be more difficult, Fried said. There was little written about the development of these communities, and few old-timers recalled the areas’ early days.

In 1987, Bearchell and Fried had a manuscript but no publisher. That changed with a chance meeting between Bearchell and former student Mel Wilson, now president of the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley.

Bearchell described the project to Wilson and grumbled about the lack of a publisher. Wilson told him that a firm that the chambers worked with, Windsor Publications, was looking for a writer to compile a history of the Valley.

The rest is, well, history.

Mixed Reviews

Professional historians who have read the book give it mixed reviews. Martin Fchiesl, a history professor at Cal State Los Angeles and an authority on Los Angeles history, was impressed with the authors’ work on the Valley’s colonization by the Spanish and the growth of the Mexican ranchos.

But Fchiesl criticized the book for giving short shrift to the Valley’s 1940s transition from an agricultural area to a home to the defense industry. He expressed disappointment that the authors virtually ignored the growth of the Valley’s political clout in Los Angeles.

In the 1950s and early ‘60s, Fchiesl said, Valley residents were pitted against the so-called downtown business establishment over such issues as development and city services. The battles often favored the downtown establishment until 1961, when Valley residents elected one of their own, Sam Yorty, as mayor of Los Angeles.

“We decided not to get into the us-versus-them controversy,” Bearchell said. “We couldn’t get everything in.”

But the pair won’t apologize for the book’s rosier orientation. “We were not looking to expose all the warts,” Bearchell said. “We were trying to show all the beauty spots.”