A Park With a Past

Native Americans once built a thriving village in the shadow of the jutting boulders here. Later, Mexican settlers raised adobe homes. Then came the stagecoaches, rattling across steep and rocky roads.

Now, the 670-acre site of grassy trails and sandstone bluffs tucked in the hills above Chatsworth is set to take on its next role: the state’s newest historic park.

The designation, expected to come Tuesday at a California State Park and Recreation Commission meeting, will not bring any immediate improvements to the site just south of Santa Susana Pass Road. Nonetheless, park boosters call it an important step.

“I’m thrilled,” said Janice Hinkston, who began working in 1970 to win recognition of the tract, which often is overlooked even by local residents. “People have thought I was dreaming the impossible dream, but it was just too important to give up.”

Supporters have at least one fear about the area’s increased visibility, though. Past publicity has brought vandals, who spray-painted rocks, and pot hunters, who dug up chunks of earth in a search for artifacts. Such excavation is illegal and carries the possibility of a two-year prison sentence or a stiff fine.

Filled with steep cliffs, sharp ridges and abundant wildlife, the area’s varied geography is matched by a rich history dating back thousands of years, when it served as a border outpost of the Chumash and Tongva cultures. The village, a sort of ancient Tijuana where two cultures often met, shows influences from both tribes, and it numbered between 50 and a few hundred people, say local archeologists.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Spanish explorers began traveling through the area, and by 1804, the Santa Susana pass is mentioned as one of the primary north-south routes between Los Angeles and the rest of the state.

Over the next century, several important roads were built through the area, despite a treacherously steep portion of the pass at the western end of the park called “Devil’s Slide.”

The section was so pitched that stagecoaches were lowered down it by hand. There were three fares: one for those who stayed in the coach, one for those who got out and hiked that leg of the journey, and the cheapest for those who helped do the lowering. On both sides of the pass, local families established stagecoach stops and watering holes.

In modern history, the area served as a quarry for much of the rock used in the building of Los Angeles Harbor. It was also used as the location for several westerns, as well as an early film version of Jack and the Beanstalk.

“Other than Olvera [Street], this is the largest concentration of historic sites in Los Angeles,” said Al Knight, an archeologist who has spent the past seven years documenting the area’s history.

The drive to set the area aside as a state park began in 1970, when Hinkston was a kindergarten teacher at Chatsworth Park Elementary. Looking out the windows of her classroom, she wondered how long the rugged hills would survive the onslaught of approaching development.

For the next two decades, she threw herself into the project, marshaling a legion of volunteers to serve in the Santa Susana Mountain Park Assn. Over the years, Hinkston, who is divorced, turned down two wedding proposals from suitors who wanted to take her away from her beloved park. Only recently did she move to Oregon to be with her daughter and 5-year-old grandson.

“I still am very passionate about it,” said Hinkston, who plans to fly down for Tuesday’s hearing in Valencia. “I love the rocks and the land and the history.”

Although state park officials were at first reluctant to become involved with a project so close to an urban area, they began buying land in 1979. Tracts came in bits and pieces, with a 34-acre section in the process of being added even now.

There were plenty of battles with developers. One wanted to build a mobile home park. Another wanted luxury homes catering to equestrians. In 1972, at the height of the Cold War, suspicious neighbors accused the whole effort of being a Communist plot to seize land.

The project also labored in the shadow of better-known conservation battles in the Santa Monica Mountains. There, clashes between big developers and preservation groups won much of the public’s attention thanks to wealthy--and well-known--homeowners and the aggressive Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the state agency charged with preserving open space there.

“It was never easy,” archeologist Knight said.

On a recent hike, Knight showed off the potential of the area, which state officials are proposing to call the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park.

Although the site is already open to the public, it is hardly marked with distinction. One entrance is through a tear in a chain-link fence near the foot of Lassen Street and Valley Circle Boulevard. Another is in Ventura County, at the foot of Lilac Lane.

The 1,700-foot peaks of the Simi Hills form the backdrop, encircling the park area with a massive, red-orange wall. The ramparts in the park were formed about 5 million years ago by mountain-building forces shoving the earth upward, according to a state report.

The Native Americans in the area had a different explanation. According to one recorded legend, a local chief named Sparrow Hawk fled to the hills to mourn the death of his bride. There he remained forever, his outstretched, questioning arms forming the shape of a hawk that can still be seen today (with the help of a squint) in the peaks overlooking the tract.

The park association offers weekly tours through the area, which is laced with trails. In addition, hikers, joggers and horse riders use the proposed park on a routine basis. Knight estimates there are 10,000 to 20,000 visitors a year.

Nearby residents Zsuzsu Illes and Laura Moran were out riding horses Friday. For them, the area is a convenient place to enjoy an activity not normally associated with city living.

“We don’t want to see it developed at all,” said Moran, 35, as she rode Tommy, her 17-year-old quarter horse.

A little farther up the trail, Kate Poole was hiking toward the top of the pass for a view of the valley. A 33-year-old Chatsworth equestrian, she said she enjoys the convenience of the area and its rural view.

But more important, she said, the park is a refuge of sorts.

“I’m not really a city person,” said Poole. “Here I can escape.”