Page 9 - eternalvalley1958

Major Horace Bell, a friend of the Lyon brothers, wrote an exciting account of the first
stage run over the San Fernando mountains to Rancho San Francisco:
rr ... the trail over San Fernando Pass was a rocky acclivity ... difficult even by pack mule
... with a descent of equal abruptness.

11 Standing on the summit . .. a precipice of many hundred feet lay before you . .. facing
about dizzily you wonder how you reached the rocky summit.

/n Decem,ber, '54, the driver sat on the box of his Concord Stage ... reaching the summit
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... the question among his nine wondering passengers who had toiled up the mountain
on foot, was how the Stage could descend . ..

T he driver cracks his whip, tightens his lines, whistles to his trembling mustangs, urges
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them to the brink of the precipice and they are going down!!! ... Racketty, clatter bang.
DON YGNACIO DEL VALLE
Sometimes the horses ahead of the stage and sometimes the stage ahead of the horses, all,
In 1853 the Pacific Railroad survey mapped a new route through Williamson's Pass, h·owever, going down, down with a CRASH!
known today as Soledad Canyon. It seemed easier to travel than the older road and later
11 Finally, the conglomeration of chains, harness, coach, mustangs and driver were found
became the most popular of the known routes. There was a great deal of development
in an inextricable mass of confusion - contusions, cracks and breaks ... piled in a thicket
at Rancho San Francisco. In August Fort Tejon was established. Within two months a
of chaparral at the f oat of the mountain.
road district from Los Feliz Ranch to the Rancho was formed, and $1,000 was appro-
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1 rDidn't I tell you?" said the driver, a beautiful descent, far less difficult than I had
priated by the County Board of Supervisors to improve the wagon road between Mission
anticipated."
San Fernando and the Rancho. The Kern Riyer gold rush really started traffic over the
old road. An inland stage line was started from Los Angeles to the Kern County mines. This marked the arrival of the first stage at Lyon's Station.
Staging was of great importance before the railroads came. Stage lines, dependent upon A description of a stay at the station was written by Harris Newmark in 1856. "The
livestock and wagons, could not keep running without stations at short intervals. This first stop out of Los Angeles was at Lyon's Station where we put up for the night. One
explains the necessity for Lyon's Station - the first American settlement in the area - of the brothers prepared supper. Having to draw some thick blackstrap from a keg, he
originally founded by del Valle and Wiley in 1851 and taken over by Sanford and used a pitcher to catch the treacle. The liquid ran slowly ... steadily .. . overflowed and
Cyrus Lyon, 49'ers from Maine, in 1854. spread over the dirt floor. When Lyon finished chatting, he found a new job on his hands

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