1910 'Ramona' Film To Be Shown Jan. 16.
By LEON WORDEN, President, SCV Historical Society.
Heritage Junction Dispatch, January 2002.

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Mary Pickford

The year was 1910, and the registry at the Piru Hotel still shows that on the first two days of April, Mary Pickford was in town starring in D.W. Griffith's one-reel screen adaptation of Helen Hunt Jackson's classic 1884 romantic novel, "Ramona."

Pickford appeared in no fewer than 50 films in 1910, and this one was billed as the Biograph Co.'s "most elaborate and artistic movie yet." Set in the original location that inspired Jackson, the famous director Griffith used the hotel as well as the chapel, adobe and patio at Rancho Camulos as backdrops for this tale that idealized the Mexican-Spanish lifestyle of the early Californios.

Copies of the 1910 film are nearly impossible to come by — which is why, when Society Vice President Alan Bofenkamp came up with one, we just had to let you see it!

Come to the Society's general membership meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2002, starting at 7:30 p.m., and you'll have a rare opportunity to watch a true Santa Clarita Valley epic unfold — one that was set here in the 19th Century and filmed here at the outset of the 20th.

Plus, you'll get a chance to meet and affirm the newest members of the Society board, who will help lead us into a new and exciting year.

The admission price? Free. But bring your pocketbook, because we'll have a contest or two for some fun prizes — including an antique copy of the "Ramona" novel.