Frontier Spirit Lives Where Santa Clara River Begins

Along the headwaters of the Santa Clara River here is one of the last local frontiers of the odd and the unconventional.

There are lions and tigers, RV parks, collectors and a growing tribe of escapees from homeowner association rules.

Here, independence is a badge.

Many residents leave their doors unlocked--but keep a loaded shotgun or rifle nearby. They relish driving on dirt roads and eye authority with suspicion.

Horses tethered at the nearby town center in Acton, with its Old West boardwalk, are more common than BMWs. There isn’t a traffic light for miles. “No Trespassing” warnings proliferate.

“You start pushing people around up here and they’ll not only walk out the backdoor with a rifle in hand, but they’ll come out in groups of people with rifles,” said Tom Haile, 61, a self-described “old-time hayseed,” who has studied the lore of the canyon and its quirky denizens nearly all his life.

Soledad Canyon lies in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains south of the Antelope Valley Freeway. It stretches from Canyon Country in the Santa Clarita Valley, through a portion of the town of Acton, to the edge of the Antelope Valley.

Outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez, with an $8,000 reward on his head, hid out in the canyon until he was captured in 1874. And the first train route linking Northern and Southern California was completed in 1876, at the south end of the canyon at Lang Station.

The Soledad post office was established in 1868 to serve Ravenna, a mining town named after a local merchant and saloonkeeper. A train depot also served the population until the ore ran out in the early 1900s and the town disappeared.

Like Ravenna, the old frontier outposts of Soledad and Lang Station are also gone.

Close Camaraderie and Fast Gossip

Today, most residents of the area are clustered near Acton. Locals often greet one another with an exchange of shouted obscenities, followed by hearty laughs, backslaps and handshakes befitting a close camaraderie. Breaking news and gossip speeds like lightning from one outpost to the next.

It’s a tradition that dates back as far as man has populated the canyon, perhaps as long as 8,000 years ago, according to Haile, a retired federal land surveyor. Because of the canyon’s year-round water supply, it was one of the early areas settled by Spanish and American pioneers.

Residents since have fiercely protected the Old West frontier flavor of their territory, an almost forgotten corner of California.

Typical of those who helped preserve the frontier image was Ron Oxley, who trained the bear used in television’s “Gentle Ben” in the 1960s, as well as dozens of other animal performers from movies and TV.

Oxley, who died in 1985, “was quite a character,” Haile said. “He was a really sincere, honest, good-hearted person who got along great with friends. But if a stranger drove past, he would shoot into the air and act like he was crazier than a bedbug. He scared the hell out of people.”

The Old West ambience, as well as the peace and quiet of open space, lures thousands of visitors a year to half a dozen trailer parks and picnic grounds along Soledad Canyon Road, which winds for more than 15 miles along the last wild river in Los Angeles County.

The river-dwellers are hearty souls who pay a premium in costly cleanups and repairs after periodic ravaging by floods. They are also known for constantly battling with federal, state and county authorities, charged with protecting the river, even though much of its course is through privately owned land.

White Rock Lake Resort, for instance, which offers camping, picnics and swimming, was a battleground for years. The owners continually wrangled with officials over their right to fill and empty a man-made swimming hole that authorities said threatened endangered stickleback fish in the adjoining river. Resort owner Guy Welch died recently of a heart attack, the ultimate loser in the battle, friends said.

Africa USA, a 385-acre compound that housed hundreds of wild animal performers, was finally forced out of the canyon nearly two decades ago by devastating floods. But the roars of lions and tigers and trumpeting of elephants can still be heard from Tippi Hedron’s Shambala Preserve, at 6867 Soledad Canyon Road, which offers public photo safaris.

Some families have lived in the desolate region for generations, descendants of early settlers who worked in the copper, gold and silver mines.

Others, like the George Blum family, came to work the land. Ray Billet and his wife, Elizabeth, Blum’s granddaughter, still operate the 109-year-old Blum Ranch, which produces honey, pears, peaches, almonds and lilacs on 150 acres in Aliso Canyon, where the Santa Clara begins its journey through the Santa Clarita Valley and Ventura County to the sea.

The Billets live in a two-story wood and river-stone farmhouse completed in 1916 by her grandfather, who was a stonecutter in Switzerland before immigrating to Chicago and Los Angeles. The original two-room homestead, smokehouse and blacksmith shop still stand, along with many of the implements used to build them.

The Billets can recite a litany of battles with authorities over property lines, roads and water rights, as well as the struggle to survive on the ranch.

One county official, who had battled the pair for years, “called my husband the most stubborn man he had ever met,” said Elizabeth Billet, 65. “That may be true, but we stick up for our rights.”

“I never pulled a shotgun on anyone, although I was sorely tempted,” added Ray Billet, 66. “But I ran a few out of the house.”

No Such Thing as Urban Sprawl

The rugged, independent lifestyle is cherished by most residents, said Haile, who fled with his family from Sunland in 1952, just as bulldozers began ripping down lemon groves and vineyards surrounding their home.

About 300 people lived in the area then, Haile said, “and it would take you three days to find them all, they were so scattered. The population now is estimated at more than 9,000 residents, with most of them living in the community of Acton and perhaps 200 people in the canyon itself.

“I could step out the backdoor and shoot a rifle in any direction and nobody would care,” said Haile, who continues to live in the family’s ramshackle home on four acres in Acton. “I still do that, but there’s a lot more targets than there was then,” he added chuckling, counting himself among “a vestige of old-timers still left up here.”

Haile said longtime residents don’t want a Santa Clarita with wall-to-wall condos. “If I wanted to look at somebody’s wall out my bedroom window, I would have moved to Pacoima long ago. I moved here to get away from all that.”

An Encino heiress, whose father purchased a 2,000-acre cattle ranch in the canyon in 1933, was so adamant that the property never be developed that she recently willed the entire parcel to the Archeological Conservancy, a private nonprofit preservation group based in Albuquerque, N.M.

Historical and Natural Attributes

Haile uses his expertise in identifying and preserving historically significant archeological sites as ammunition to help block or greatly modify proposed subdivisions. For years he has crisscrossed the canyon and hillsides, charting more than 200 sites with significant artifacts.

Grandson of a full-blooded Cherokee, Haile sees more than just rocks in the sand beneath manzanita. He sees history and the lore that has captivated generations of residents. He visualizes the hundreds of Tataviam Indians who thrived along the headwaters of the Santa Clara.

On a short trek above the river this week, Haile suddenly stopped, peering down through wire-rim glasses and the graying curls of a full beard, and plucked up a tiny hard shard.

Bobbling it gently in the calloused creases of his hand, he said, “Most people would think it’s just a stone.” Then he pointed out the fractured shape and sharp edges that reveal, he said, that it was purposely cut for use as a chipping spear or arrowhead.

“It’s rhyolite,” he added, explaining that the closest rhyolite is more than 30 miles north in Rosamond, meaning this artifact was most likely carried to this place, probably hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago.

It is not only the artifacts, but the water that flows down from Mt. Gleason and the ridges of Angeles National Forest all around that make this bowl so important, Haile said.

The Santa Clarita Valley currently relies on the aquifer below the Santa Clara River for about half the valley’s drinking water. And much of the river’s watershed is in the mountains surrounding Soledad Canyon.

“This all drains into the Santa Clara River,” Haile said. “It’s the cleanest water in Los Angeles County. If we lose this source, then Santa Clarita is not going to have anything to drink.”