Santa Clarita Valley’s Past Revisited

Behind the Camulos Rancho, the inspiration for the fictional rancho in the popular 1884 novel “Ramona,” sits a tiny chapel in a cluster of poppies where the story’s heroine would feel right at home.

Writer Helen Hunt Jackson visited Camulos in the early 1800s and used it as the setting for her romantic tale about a beautiful Indian-Scottish girl shunned by California’s early European settlers. The book romanticized the California rancho lifestyle and drew attention from all over the country to the plight of the state’s Native Americans.

To preserve the rich history of Camulos and other local landmarks, the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society will conduct docent training for volunteers later this month at the Heritage Junction Historical Park in Newhall.

“Santa Clarita Valley history is key to the history of California,” said Pat Saletore, docent coordinator for the Historical Society.

“So many important events happened here. We’ve had senators and desperadoes, cowboys and Indians, cattle, oil and movie stars. You can hardly look at our history and not find something of interest to someone.”

The docent training consists of seven classes and a field trip. Each class focuses on a particular historical period or landmark.

There is no age requirement for docents. Eleven-year-old Bobby Campbell of Newhall has been a docent for almost a year, since he got hooked on history after training with his father.

“Not only do you teach other people, but you learn as well,” Bobby said. “I’m not an expert yet, but some people say I do a really good job of explaining the Newhall Ranch house,” he said, referring to the home where the 19th century owner of the Santa Clarita Valley, Henry Mayo Newhall, once lived.

A class might cover the many silent films shot in the area, or it might be about the U.S. soldiers, led by Gen. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who used picks and shovels to dig a 90-foot-deep, 80-yard-long trail through the Santa Susana Mountains to create a trade route between Los Angeles and Northern California.

“You don’t have to be a history buff to enjoy the classes,” said Dave Weston, 50, who completed his docent training last year. “You just have to be curious about how people lived in the valley for the last 150 years.

“One of the more rewarding things about being a docent is when you can enlighten someone who didn’t know how many important events have occurred here.”

One of the most popular classes is on the collapse of the St. Francis Dam northeast of Castaic, which killed 450 people on March 12, 1928. It ranks with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as one of the state’s deadliest tragedies.

The billions of gallons of water unleashed by the collapse sent a 75-foot-high wall of water across the Santa Clara Valley and all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

But the Historical Society considers Camulos, just west of the Ventura County line on California 126, the jewel in the latest docent training class because it was closed to the public for many years.

Antonio del Valle was granted the land in 1839 and the rancho--originally more than 48,000 acres with its own chapel, winery, lush gardens and oak trees--was built several years later. It was called “the Home of Ramona” for years after Jackson’s book was published, and although it was almost destroyed in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, renovation is now underway.

The society “is thrilled because none of us have ever seen it,” Saletore said. “It was the home of the first owner of the valley and a symbol of the unique lifestyle that Californios lived.”