From Cults to Quake, Book Offers Expansive Look at Simi

Oh, the stories the stucco conceals.

Beneath Simi Valley’s mild middle-class exterior lies a deep history--of the Chumash, Spanish missionaries, cattle ranchers, land barons, pioneers, cultists and, yes, suburbanites.

Over the last six years, city historian Pat Havens has made it her mission to unearth that history: hunting down odd Simi Valley lore, interviewing descendants of pioneers, sorting through letters, diaries, ledgers and newspaper clippings.

The results are compiled in “Simi Valley: A Journey Through Time,” a 503-page book that goes on sale today for $49.95 in hardback or $29.95 in softcover. Havens and her colleagues at the Simi Valley Historical Society couldn’t be more proud of their 3-pound, 6-ounce baby. “I feel very relieved to have it done and to have met our expectations,” Havens said Friday. “As people read it and find their names and the names of people they know, they’ll be pleased. . . . Even if you just look at the pictures, you’ll learn a lot.”

The historical society pre-sold almost $20,000 worth of books to Simi Valley newcomers and old-timers, pioneer families and PTAs. The first printing of 2,750 will likely sell out by the end of January, predicted Larry Silverman, a docent who serves as the book’s publicist.

“It’s like three books in one,” Silverman said. “It’s the most comprehensive [Simi Valley] history book to date. With 540 pictures, it’s something you’d want to put on your coffee table.”

Historians, geologists and archivists contributed to the book, adding sections on the railroad, native vegetation, water supplies, rock formations, paleontology and ranching before and after irrigation.

Havens’ book takes the reader from the Chumash settlements of Shimiji, Ta’apu and Kimishax through the 1994 Northridge earthquake and beyond.

Neither conquests nor quirks are overlooked.

The city’s simple story line is this:

In Simi Valley, as elsewhere, Spaniards following Father Junipero Serra dominated the Chumash. The Chumash had named the land “Shimiji”-- or “thread” for the gauzy clouds that sometimes shrouded the valley.

El Rancho Simi was founded in 1795 when King Carlos of Spain rewarded one of his long-serving soldiers--Santiago Pico--with 113,000 acres.

The land between the Simi Hills and the Santa Susana Mountains was arid, but fertile enough for raising grapes and livestock, Pico’s family found. A decade after Mexico won its independence from Spain, the Pico descendants sold their land to Spanish cattle rancher Jose de la Guerra.

After a crippling drought, De la Guerra’s sons sold it to wealthy Easterners who, after giving the area the citified--and short-lived--name of “Simiopolis,” hawked plots to speculators and ranchers.

Unfamiliar with the limited resources of aquifers, those cattle ranchers, citrus growers and grain farmers sapped the valley’s water supply. In the 1950s, the land was sold to developers from the San Fernando Valley looking to build new tracts. A suburb was born.

The details are not so tame.

At least three cults have sought shelter in the dun-colored hills and craggy rock formations of Simi Valley: the Pisgah Grande Colony, the Great Eleven Club and the Fountain of the World.

The first was a relatively benign group of healers in the early 1900s who sent handkerchiefs with supposedly curative powers across the country. The second group--based in the Santa Susana Knolls in the 1920s--mixed sex, religion, money and ritual sacrifices of white mules, white dogs and other white animals. While awaiting the return of Christ, the group kept on ice in a bathtub the body of a young woman member who had died of an illness. Thirty years later, a long-haired, bearded Krishna Venta, robed and barefoot, set up his own group in the Box Canyon area. Venta’s followers believed him to be their holy master because he had no belly button. By most accounts, Venta had no scruples either: He reputedly slept with the wives of fellow cultists.

“In the late 1950s, that ended with a bang,” Havens recalled. “Some people came in and blew [the retreat] up. Apparently, it was two disgruntled husbands.”

The book also contains more mundane tales of the valley’s characters: the deaf piano teacher, Abby Dingess, who put one clawlike hand on her students’ knees to tell if a tune’s vibrations felt right.

And hermit Constantine Brankin, who lived au naturel in a cabin near where the Simi Valley Hospital now sits.

“You would hire him as a gardener, and he would replant weeds--he couldn’t stand to kill them,” Havens said. “He wouldn’t kill a rattlesnake either. He would feel the snake’s tongue at his heels and he’d flick it away.”

Almost all the tales from the 1900s on are accompanied by photographs--many taken by Simi Valley pioneer John Sparhawk Appleton, whose great-grandson, Bill Appleton, was the book’s art director.

A rancher from Massachusetts, John Sparhawk Appleton sought his fortune in Simi Valley in 1897. By 1906, he had bought his first camera. By the time he died, he had shot 1,500 photos of his beloved Simi Valley, for reasons his great-grandson can’t quite pin down.

“Why he took so many photographs--that’s a question I constantly ask myself,” Appleton said. “He has a regular job as a rancher and his hobby wasn’t even photography--he actually collected birds eggs. . . . I think he must have bought the camera to send photos to his family back East, so they could see how his 11 children were growing.”

Now Appleton’s descendants--as well as a slew of other people--can look at the photographs to see how Simi Valley has grown.

FYI: “Simi Valley: A Journey Through Time,” will be on sale at the Strathearn Historical Park and Museum, 137 Strathearn Place, between 1 and 4 p.m. todayand Sunday. Copies will also be available between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. Book signings are scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m. Jan. 17 and 24 at the Strathearn Park. It is not available at bookstores.