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3.8 Cultural Resources

widened and collected toll for the right of passage for 22 years before the County halted the practice.
Beale’s Cut was a vital route that served the Southern California area until it was bypassed by the
Newhall Tunnel in 1910. By 1915, the “Ridge Route” extended from downtown Los Angeles north
through the Newhall Tunnel and into the San Joaquin Valley. The San Fernando Railroad Tunnel, the

fourth longest tunnel in the world at the time of the tunnel’s completion in 1876, is still used by the Union
Pacific Railroad and Metrolink.

Because San Francisquito Canyon was the traditional route taken to the east, it was among the first
canyons mined and settled. Gold mining continued in the canyon until the end of the 19 century, and
th
one of the camps, Ratsburg, was mined until 1930.

By 1860, a copper boom had formed in Soledad, and a little town grew near the head of Williamson’s
Pass. Both copper- and gold-bearing quartz veins were mined into the 20 century, although the rush was
th
over by 1875. 14

In 1875, most of the Rancho San Francisco was purchased by Henry Mayo Newhall, a San Francisco
entrepreneur. From that time to the present, the history of the Santa Clarita Valley has been linked to the

activities of Newhall and, after his death, to the family company, The Newhall Land and Farming
Company. When Newhall acquired the Rancho, he knew the Southern Pacific Railroad intended to lay
tracks north out of Los Angeles to join with the Central Pacific and its connection to the Transcontinental
Railroad. A rail route through his property would increase its value, so he sold an alignment to the

Southern Pacific for one dollar and a square-mile townsite to the railroad’s development company for
another dollar.

Three months after Newhall’s land purchase, the Southern Pacific began tunneling through the
mountains and the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys. Built with Chinese labor, at 6,940 feet the San
Fernando (Railroad) Tunnel was the third-longest tunnel in the United States when it was completed on
July 27, 1876. As the Southern Pacific extended track to the north, the Central Pacific was coming south to

meet it. The two companies joined track near Lang Station in Canyon Country in a “golden spike”
ceremony on September 5, 1876. The following month, on October 18, 1876, the Southern Pacific began
subdividing the town of Newhall.

Initially the town was located at Bouquet Junction, in what would later become Saugus, named for Henry
Newhall’s home town in Massachusetts. Little more than a year later, in January and February 1878, the
town moved 3 miles south to its present location at Old Town Newhall, probably because of better water

14 Rincon (2002).

Impact Sciences, Inc. 3.8-5 One Valley One Vision Revised Draft Program EIR
0112.023 County of Los Angeles Area Plan
November 2010