The four major towns of the Santa Clarita Valley Valencia, Saugus, Newhall and Canyon Country were quite distinct and blended together with much time and planning. First evidence of human activity around the Santa Clarita area was from the Tataviam (people facing the sun) who created a homeland in the east part of the valley known as Canyon Country. The Tongva Kitanemuk, and Serrano people also called this area a homeland more than five hundred years ago. More than two decades later after the Mexican Independence, the people focused on the joining of Castaic Creek and the Santa Clara River. When the collapse of the St. Francis Dam happened in 1928 settlements and people were washed away along the Santa Clara River. About 30 years later in the 1960's the Newhall Land company's suburban developments transformed Canyon Country and surrounding towns into a strict residential and cultural city.
Newhall is the southernmost and oldest part of Santa Clarita. Before the combining of Valencia, Saugus, Newhall and Canyon Country in 1987, it was an independent, but unincorporated town. It was known as the first permanent Anglo settlement in the valley. The city of Newhall was named after a great businessman Henry Newhall, who made great fortune during the Gold Rush in California and later opened up the H.M. Newhall & Company.
Saugus started development after Newhall, before Valencia, and got its name from Saugus, Massachusetts which was the hometown of Henry Newhall. The most famous landmark in Saugus is the Saugus Cafe just east of the Sherriff's Station on Bouquet Canyon Road.
Valencia is the part of Santa Clarita where I was raised for about 14 years of my life and the place I call home. It was first planned in the 1960's by the Newhall Land and Farming Company. Development began in the late 1960's and still continues present till this day. It is held together by a small knit community of apartment buildings, schools, industrial parks, single-family homes and shopping centers along about a dozen of boulevards running through the city.
A Few Fun Facts About the First Inhabitants:
They came sweeping across the Great Plains to the Santa
Clarita Valley sometime around 450 A.D., a band of Shoshone
Indians called the Tataviam. Evidence of the first inhabitants
of the Santa Clarita Valley dates back about 13,000 years, but
little is known about them. Just over 1500 years ago, these
previous inhabitants of the Valley were displaced by a people
who migrated westward from the Great Plains. For many
years modern historians called them the “Alliklik,” but this
turned out to be a derogatory name given to them by their
neighbors to the west, the Chumash. More recently they have
been known as the Tataviam or “people of the sunny slopes”,
so named by the Kitanemuk Indians of the Antelope Valley, due
to their habit of building villages on southern facing slopes of
mountains to maximize sun exposure.Sources:
- http://www.scvhistory.com/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon_Country,_Santa_Clarita,_California
- http://www.newhallfoundation.org/aboutHMN.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tataviam
- http://scvhs.org/news/dispatch34-4.pdf
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