Boomtown Bash

There are a lot of fall festivals in Southern California, but not many take place in ghost towns. This Sunday, though, at the third annual Mentryville Harvest Festival, which will take place at the base of Pico Canyon just west of Newhall, you can celebrate the history of a pioneer western town.

“It was the site of the first commercially successful oil well in California, and in fact in the western United States,” said Paul Higgins, an educational consultant and founding president of the Friends of Mentryville, who are sponsoring the festival.

The tiny one-block town, he said, consists of a one-room 1885 schoolhouse, a vintage blacksmith barn and the restored two-story mansion of oil superintendent Charles Alexander “Alex” Mentry, who first discovered oil at the site in 1876.

“It started an oil rush, and Mentryville became an oil boomtown like the gold boomtowns of 1849,” said Higgins. “At its highest point, in 1880, there were 100 families living there. But by 1900, the richest deposits were depleted, and by the 1930s the workers had moved on. It was never meant to be a permanent town.”

The well, known as Pico No. 4, was the first commercially successful oil well in the western U.S. Eventually it was acquired by Standard Oil and later by Chevron Corp. It continued running until 1990--making it the longest-running oil well in the world.

In 1995, Mentryville--which sustained extensive damage in the Northridge earthquake--was acquired by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy as part of the 3,035-acre Santa Clarita Woodlands Park.

The festival, a fund-raiser that drew 4,000 people last year, is an attempt to recapture Mentryville’s 1880s glory, said Higgins. Everyone is invited to come in costume.

According to organizer Sandi Ramirez, there will be woodworking and spinning demonstrations, food vendors and such old-fashioned entertainment as a magician on a unicycle, a trick roper, a strolling barbershop quartet and a 1920s jug band.

There will also be an Old West exhibition on the safe use of firearms, presented by the Hole in the Wall Gang, and miniature train rides. Historical characters such as “Tiburcio Vasquez,” an infamous area bandit (played by Ruben Zamora), will wander the premises, and adults can enjoy an antique auto show.

A special highlight, said Ramirez, will be a narrated presentation by docent Cyndi Ralles, combined with musical selections from Mentryville’s past, played by the 45-piece Santa Clarita Valley Concert Band.

“It’s the history of Mentryville in words and music,” said band president Jim Bartos. “The narrative will be in five-minute segments, followed by a tune from that time, such as when oil was first discovered. We’ll go from the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ to an 1880s John Phillip Sousa march, to some George M. Cohan patriotic tunes, a Gershwin medley and even songs of World War II.”

Visitors wishing to experience history firsthand can take guided tours around town, said Ramirez. Although the buildings are closed for repairs, well equipment and other artifacts will be outside the barn. They can also hike to the oil fields back of the canyon, where a monument marks Pico No. 4, or to nearby Johnson Park, the onetime site of company picnics, to see a wooden replica of a turn-of-the-century oil derrick.

In addition, the Santa Clarita Historical Society will have displays on oil refinery, and boards with historic photos (as well as of the reconstruction project) may be viewed at the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy booth. On hand, as always, will be Mentryville’s popular caretaker “Sheriff Jack,” in his 1880s garb, handing out deputy badges to kids.

“Our goal is to present the event just like old-time Mentryville is having an Octoberfest. To make Mentryville into a living place, not a still-life museum,” said docent Cyndi Ralles.

“It’s not just the history of Mentryville here,” said Bartos. “It’s the history of what was going on in lots of places. What was going on in Mentryville was going on in the whole Southern California area, and the nation as well. So this event should put it all in perspective.”

BE THERE

Mentryville Harvest Festival, Sunday at 27210 Pico Canyon, Newhall (three miles west of the Lyons Avenue exit, off I-5). Hours: 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Call (805) 254-5272.