County Throws Party to Mark Its 125 Years

It’s been 125 years since Ventura County split off from Santa Barbara County to pursue its own destiny.

But only since April has Charles Johnson, librarian at the Ventura County Museum of History and Art, had a piece of paper to prove it.

County officials and history buffs celebrated the anniversary at the Government Center on Tuesday--a date of no particular historical significance--with proclamations, T-shirts, speeches and exhibits.

“The most important thing . . . is that it’s being acknowledged,” Johnson said. “People are taking the time to honor themselves.”

Because of Mary Fuller of Ventura, celebrants also could gawk at a photocopied image of the only surviving copy of Assembly Bill 218, which created the county on Jan. 1, 1873.

Fuller, a descendant of an original supporter of the secession movement, walked into Johnson’s museum at the urging of her daughter to donate the 14-page document two months ago. It had been largely forgotten in a family scrapbook for generations.

Johnson, it turned out, had been searching for the document unsuccessfully for years. The museum’s archives hold more than 11,000 articles of incorporation for various organizations filed with the county, but not the paperwork that created the county itself.

“This county seems to be particularly appreciative of its own history because of the amount of material that’s still around,” Johnson said.

Appreciation was the order of the day Tuesday despite gloomy June skies. Judy Mikels, present-day supervisor and board chairwoman, said the anniversary is a time for reflection.

“We get mired down in the daily minutiae,” she said. “It’s sometimes nice to step back and think about where we were as a county and where we are.”

Where the county was in 1873 was a 2,000-square mile chunk of land ripped from the southeastern portion of Santa Barbara County.

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The impetus for the county’s creation was not only what Johnson described as “the downright perilous” journey to far-off Santa Barbara along the Rincon, but money and adequate political representation.

Some early residents of the region that was to become Ventura County referred to the county seat to the north as “the oppressor.”

And the attitude of Santa Barbarans toward their secession-seeking neighbors to the south was equally hostile judging by the notes of a journalist of the era.

“San Buenaventura--the unfortunate people who live under the incubus of that everlasting name are endeavoring to get it changed to Ventura,” wrote Santa Barbara Press reporter Wallace Smith. “They have our permission. When the county is divided their part of it will not be big enuf to get all that name on the map of it.”

On March 22, 1872, the state Legislature approved the formation of Ventura County effective Jan. 1 the following year. The achievement came after more than a decade of lobbying and two earlier failed attempts, Johnson said.

While well endowed with documents, the county museum can always use more artifacts in its ongoing effort to present an accurate picture of by-gone days, Johnson said. Private journals that chronicle a person’s move to the county and old family picture albums are especially welcome, he said.

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Despite the passage of years, some things have likely remained constant about Ventura County, said Simi Valley resident Neil Havens, whose grandfather moved there in the late 1880s.

“I can guarantee you that when my grandfather got to Simi Valley and there were 19 families already there he said, ‘gosh, this is nice--don’t let anybody else in.’ ”