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MENTRYVILLE: Following the drilling of productive wells in Pico Canyon, a
small town grew among the derricks. Named Mentryville in honor of Mentry, it
grew to be home for approximately 100 families. Their homes were built of red-
wood, and many of them were lighted and heated from gas produced by a gas well.
Gas is still used from this well to heat the Mentry house today.
Althoµgh there was no main street with commercial establishments, the field
office, blacksmith shops and cabins were built among derricks to house the
workers. Easterners were imported to work in the fields and were boarded in bunk
houses. There was a schoolhouse, and also a bakery which in later years supplied
the town of Newhall with bread and pastries. The stage from Newhall to Men-
tryville made the trip twice daily. Across the creek from the Mentry house there
was a boiler house, and next to this a wash house. The ladies of the canyon had hot
running water with which to do their laundry.
Except for the Mentry house, the schoolhouse, the barn, the little red house (the
chicken house) by the barn, there are no original buildings left. Lumber was so
scarce that as the owners left the canyon they literally "picked up their homes and
took them with them." They say that many an early house in Newhall is made
from lumber used in Pico Canyon. A tin garage was built when autos came into
general use. One of its builders was Will (Bill) Cochems, who worked with Stan-
dard Oil Company.
Mr. Mentry moved from Placerita Canyon to Pico Canyon in the 1880's and
owned two houses before he built the "big house." He married the daughter of
Judge Nathan Spencer Lake of New York.