Page 11 - carey-bunse_habs_ca2712

HARRY CAREY RANCH
(Clougherty Ranch)
HABS No. CA-2712 (Page 11)
)
Navahogan." A brochure produced to promote the business boasted of the handmade
crafts, such as rugs, silver jewelry, and baskets, noting that the craftspeople were the
) "only Navajo Indians off the reservation." The brochure included photographs of the
Indians at the post, as well as scenes showing the 1,200-acre Carey ranch land. The
trading post was a bustling and successful place and all the family members were
involved. In fact, Harry Carey, Jr. and his sister spent so much time at the ranch in the
care of their Indian nanny, Zani, that they spoke Navajo before English. 21

To further encourage visits from tourists, Carey often spent his own money to improve
and maintain San Francisquito Road, which was the main road into the San Joaquin
Valley at the time. In the mid 1920s Carey invested thousands of dollars to repair
frequent washouts of the unpaved road. The washouts were minor in comparison to the
disaster that struck the valley in 1928 when the St. Francis Dam broke on March 12,
flooding the entire canyon and killing more than 450 people. The Trading Post was
complete destroyed, but the Carey ranch home complex (the subject of this survey) was
not damaged because it was located at a higher elevation, above the river wash, which
was directly in the path of the flood. Ironically, the main house burned down just four
years later, in 1932, and the Careys replaced it with the current adobe building that rests
on the same site. ranch

Carey's ranch in the Santa Clarita Valley can, therefore, be characterized as one of many
properties in the area related to the film industry, specifically the·Western genre. Even
though Carey is regarded as one of the great early Western film stars, his fame has not
proven to be as enduring as it was for some of his Santa Clarita Valley neighbors. A
recent.biography summarized his career by saying,

Carey's Western hero -defined by the actor's sensitive, modest and
utterly likeable personality- frequently confronted with moral dilemmas
rather than athletic challenges, is clearly closer to William S. Hart'.s mould
than that of Torn Mix. Though admired by many, including the future
Western mega-stars, Gary Cooper and John Wayne, Harry Carey had to
accept a position inferior to both Hart and Mix - probably because of the
lesser impact of his most important Westerns. 23

Ranch Owners after 1945

The next long-term owners of the Carey ranch were the Clougherty family. Bernard and
Francis Clougherty were born and raised in Los Angeles where their Irish parents had

21
Harry Carey, Jr., interview January 26, 2001; "Harry Carey Trading Post," brochure, n.d., History Section, Los
Angeles Public Library; "The Time Ranger," The Signal (October 22, 1995 and April 26, 1996).
22
"Santa Clarita_ Valley," The Signal (April 23, 1995); "The Time Ranger," The Signal (April 28, 1996); "The Time
Ranger" The Signal (October 23, 1994); Michele E. Buttelman, "St. Francis Dam Disaster of March 12, 1928
Remembered," The Signal (March 12, 2000).
23
Hoffman, "A" Western Filmmakers, 280.