Volunteers Will Spruce Up Ghost Town

Wielding paintbrushes and pruning tools, volunteers recruited by City Hall and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy will give historic Mentryville, a 119-year-old ghost town, a face lift next month, city officials announced this week. The abandoned oil town is slated to be opened to the public later this year.

Mentryville--a 20-acre site with eight buildings intact--is part of a 3,000-acre plot of parkland in Pico Canyon that Chevron Corp. sold to the conservancy last spring. The city of Santa Clarita has since also become involved in the preservation of the ghost town.

“We’ll be doing some cosmetic work to clean the site up,” said Rick Putnam, director of parks, recreation and community services. “Some weeding, some tree pruning, a little bit of painting, repair of some fences.”

The cleanup is scheduled for Aug. 26.

Both the city and the conservancy are recruiting service organizations to adopt specific cleanup projects. Individuals are not being invited to just show up at the site, which has been closed to the public for several years.

“We will not just throw open the gates, because Mentryville is a very sensitive historic resource and we want to make sure this is done right,” said Rorie Skei, a conservancy official.

The ghost town will be open for viewing after escrow closes on the property at the end of August, Skei said, but probably only by appointment or during special events.