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45 Years of Excellence and Innovation The History of College of the Canyons | 1969-2014

45 YEARS of

EXCELLENCE and

INNOVATION

By JOHN GREEN

he first classes at College of the Canyons began in 1969, but this story
actually begins two years earlier. That’s when the citizens of the Santa
TClarita Valley decided it was time they had a college to call their own.
On Nov. 21, 1967, they voted overwhelmingly to transform the idea into reality.
While they were at it, they also elected a five-member board of trustees to over-
see the creation of their new junior college.
Optimism abounded for what lay ahead. This once-sleepy whistle-stop
along Southern Pacific Railroad’s Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line was grow-
ing like it never had before. In communities we now call Saugus and Canyon
Country, a growing assortment of tract homes was sprouting – although vast
expanses of vacant or agricultural land still separated the valley’s distinct com-
munities. Downtown Newhall was the established commercial center, featuring
car dealerships, a supermarket, a bank and other merchants typical of a small
The land that would become the Valencia campus of College of the Canyons is in the cen- town of fewer than 60,000 people.
ter of the photo above, looking south across the Santa Clarita Valley in the late 1960s.
Interstate 5 is on the right, with Valencia Boulevard cutting across the freeway and the But things were changing. And quickly.
McBean Parkway overpass in the distance. The then-new Valencia Country Club is along During the summer of that pivotal year of 1967, the master-planned com-
the bottom. The top photo was taken from roughly the same vantage point in early 2015.
munity of Valencia was born, luring young families from over the hill with

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