VALLEY WEEKEND : Annual Fiesta to Commemorate Historic Peace Treaty : The Campo de Cahuenga celebration marks the signing of an agreement transferring California from Mexican to U.S. rule.

Did you know that 1996 marks the 150th year, or sesquicentennial, of the war that ended in the United States’ acquisition of California?

Next week at a site near the Cahuenga Pass, a historical reenactment and fiesta will commemorate the scene at its original site marking the end of the Mexican-American War in California. The conflict began in Sonoma 150 years ago this summer and came to an end half a year later right here in the San Fernando Valley.

The annual celebration this year will focus on a family-oriented spectacle, with participants to include the Carolina Russek dancers and Valley residents dressed as historical personalities. The original cast a century and a half ago was tense and exhausted. They had just concluded something like a civil war. There had been American-born people on the Mexican side and Mexican-born people on the U.S. side.

At a site called Campo de Cahuenga, where nowadays Lankershim Boulevard crosses the Ventura Freeway, Mexican leader Andres Pico, a Valley rancher, rode down from his house near the San Fernando Mission and surrendered to the U.S. forces under John C. Fremont.

The fighting had raged up and down the state throughout 1846. It had begun in Sonoma in the summer, led to a “Battle of Los Angeles” (actually fought near 4500 Downey Road in Vernon) on Jan. 9, 1847, and ended Jan. 13, 1847, at Campo de Cahuenga. There, control of everything from San Diego to Oregon suddenly changed hands.

The organizers of next week’s event, which will take place in the plaza of an old California hacienda, now completely surrounded by the building site of a new subway station, are lobbying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to name the station Universal City-Campo de Cahuenga Station.

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It just is not true that ours is a part of the state without a history, as some people think. For instance, the San Fernando Valley Historical Society has just published a guide to 17 interesting historical sites around here you can almost walk to--and many are fine places to picnic.

Also, beginning next month, a regular publication, Sesquicentennial Update, including a calendar of anniversary events locally, will be produced by the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Call the California 150 Unit at (916) 653-9599.

Valley school kids probably will be studying a whole string of California historical events over the next few years--until 2000 when the 150th year of our statehood will be celebrated. But this Valley event next week is a chance to see history in 3-D, plus interview the main “participants.”

Some kids may want to pursue an interest in the Mexican-American War and the Gold Rush, which followed, by writing something about it for a new publication--The California Sesquicentennial Quarterly for Kids. According to the project’s organizer, Bill Coate, a Fresno teacher, the first issue will be out this spring. To participate, call (209) 244-0200.

DETAILS

* CAMPO DE CAHUENGA: Valley families are invited to attend the first scheduled event in observance of the 150th year of the U.S. acquisition of California.

* TIME & PLACE: The historical reenactment and fiesta will be at 3919 Lankershim Blvd. from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Jan. 14.

* BACKGROUND: The event commemorates the peace agreement in a war that began in 1846 with the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma and ended six months later with the surrender of Gen. Pico’s army at Campo de Cahuenga, across from what is now Universal Studios.

* FYI: The site, operated by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. For information call Guy Weddington McCreary, Campo de Cahuenga Historical Memorials Assn., (818) 762-3998.