Remember Campo de Cahuenga

Amid all the dust and noise of Metro Rail construction in Studio City it was easy to miss a smaller excavation taking place. Less than 100 feet from where giant boring machines of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority dig their way to a future Los Angeles, a team of archeologists unearthed a piece of the past: the original foundation of the Campo de Cahuenga.

The place enjoys none of the name recognition of, say, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall or San Antonio’s Alamo, but the onetime cattle ranch played host to a brief but critical chapter in U.S. history. In 1847, Gen. Andres Pico and Lt. Col. John C. Fremont met there to sign the treaty that ended the Mexican-American War in California and eventually led to the state’s admission to the Union.

Although a modest historical park and marker commemorating the treaty were built adjacent to the foundation, no one ever knew exactly where the old ranch house sat. Archeologists working with the MTA on the Red Line project found the foundation just 6 inches below the surface, under a sidewalk and a portion of Lankershim Boulevard.

The trick now is preserving the site. Already, the adjacent park is a state landmark and a city cultural-historical monument. Archeologists and MTA officials want the foundation named to the National Register of Historic Places. That’s where it belongs.

Too often, the past gets buried under successive layers of the city. For the next several years, the foundation will remain buried under concrete and sand to protect it from subway construction, scheduled to wrap up in 2000. That gives federal officials plenty of time to review the site and ensure that it’s not lost again forever.