A FEW INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT " ... an authentic part of the old West" ETEll.lf AL VALLEY MEMDll.lAL PA!lX CALIFORNIA'S PIONEER CEMETERY At the junction of Route _14 and San Fernando Road. ----(._j •·,,,.. ,1 ,,,,,,, ETERNAL VALLEY MEMORIAL PARK ••• an Historic Landmark A large bronze plaque in front of Chapel of the Oaks at Eternal Valley ff-flUD'~"'""'­ VAN VA UC fN ■ UR&H Memorial Park marks the site of Lyon Station, a stage coach depot, store and OLD INDIAN VILLAGES IN THE ETERNAL VALLEY REGION post office used by travelers during the gold rush days of the early 1850's. This settlement was established in 1851 and was the first American settlement N in the area. The station received its name when taken over by Cyrus and San­ A. ford Lyon, men called Forty-Niners, who came from Maine in 1855. ~ To better understand the origins of the settlement just imagine the area long before there was a Golden State Freeway, or even a Highway 99. In RRNCHERIRS - - ~ - - - - - - __ £::l those days what is now the southern end of California Highway 14 was part TRAILS - - - - - - - - -··••••• MATERIAL SUPPLIES ! of the route from Los Angeles to Monterey Bay. Just north of present-day R.RKING MRTCRIRL - - - - - - Ci) RSPH-RLTUM - - - - - - - - ~ )< Eternal Valley the road turned west down the Santa Clara Valley toward the SCAPSiTCN£ - - - - - - - - ,,...._(e) MODERN TCWN!5 - - - - - - - ocean. One mile south of Eternal Valley is what is known as Fremont Pass. CLO MISSICN& ·· -ETC:. - - --~t More accurately called San Fernando Pass, this ancient route northward from Southern California was first used by Don Gaspar de Portola in 1769, two hundred years ago. 2 3 Mission San Fernando and the Asistencia were located on a vast acreage The Sacred Expeditions called "Rancho San Francisco." When Spain was expelled from Mexico in 1821 the Mexican government encouraged the settlement of California by In 1769 Father Junipero Serra sent out a Sacred Expedition north from offering land grants. Grants were limited to eleven square leagues - about San Diego with the intention of finding the legendary Monterey Bay. In order 49,000 acres - and there could be no absentee ownership nor transference to to maintain such a route the Padres were always on the lookout for mission any ecclesiastical botly. The term Mission, which once meant only the church sites, which had to be located at intervals of a day's journey by foot. It was town with its gardens and orchards, had come to include extensive tracts over on the 1769 Expedition that Father Juan Cresp1 recorded his impressions of which cattle, horses and sheep were allowed to roam at will. So, in effect, the the Eternal Valley area as a "very suitable site for a mission." He had in mind Mexican government had offered for disposal lands it did not own if the mis­ another link in the chain of missions between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. sion claims were allowed. The mission envisioned by Father Crespf did not become a reality. In­ By 1830 two generations of Californians by birth had developed, and stead, a mission was built at San Fernado in 1797 and as a result, an Asistencia there was a clash of interest between the rapidly growing population and the was established in the Eternal Valley area. The Asistencia became the head­ large holdings of the missions. It was resolved in 1833 when the Mexican Con­ quarters for local activities and a training school for local neophytes who fur­ gress passed the bill for secularization of the missions. nished labor for San Fernando Mission's maintenance and operation. The primary role of the Mission was, of course, to convert the Indian to Christianity and to bring European culture to the pagan wilderness. The Rancho San Francisco accomplishment of this purpose required a church, many outbuildings, the establishment of numerous trades and occupations, and a means of support­ and the del Valle Family ing - through stock raising and agriculture - hundreds of Indians, troops, civilians and padres. In October 1834, Lieutenant Antonio del Valle was commissioned to take over Mission San Fernando. As administrator of the Mission, del Valle traveled the entire length of Rancho San Francisco between San Fernando and Santa Barbara. These long horseback rides first acquainted him with the possibilities of Rio Santa Clara and Rancho San Francisco. In 1839 Don Antonio del Valle petitioned Governor Alvarado for the Rancho. His petition was granted and Mission Asistencia became the first del Valle rancho home. After del Valle's death in 1841, the rancho was partitioned and divided among his children. A portion of the Rancho called Camulos was always as­ sociated with Don Ygnacio del Valle, Antonio's eldest son. ~~-~~. ' ·, ~~ . -~-;;.. Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Tradition tells us that it was from the old Asistencia that Francisco Lopez, ~~\' ;I~· i • .._.._ /): \~••-- del Valle's cousin and two friends made the first authenticated gold discovery in California. It led to the settlement of the first mining camp in California j . ..-... ,,/ -,:' , at Placeritas Canyon. Lopez and his companions had found gold clinging to ... :.a... --~._--._ --- / ~ ,,,~ . , . the roots of wild onions nearby and their discovery touched off a rush of Artists reconstruction of th• Aaietencia of lliHion San Fernando, built ill 18oli, near the Cutaic Junction, It wu later occupied lrT 7the Del Valle prospectors from Sonora, Mexico as well as from all parts of California. after Orant of Rancho San Franciaco, Done lrT Adolph Henkel, of Nmall 1957 When war with Mexico erupted in 1846, Col. Fremont led a battalion southward against General Andres Pico. Pico hoped to halt the Americans at THE MISSION ASISTENCIA San Fernando Pass, but greatly outnumbered, he could only make a token 4 5 show of resistance and on January 13, 1847, he surrenderd to Fremont at Cahuenga Pass. Today there is a plaque on Highway 14, near the place where the Fremont expedition encamped, calling attention to Fremont Pass. Un­ fortunately, the plaque gives the erroneous impression that the cut made by E. F. Beale in 1863 is Fremont's pass. Oak of the Golden Dream, site of California's first gold discovery wait for its completion. In December, 1854, he took off with nine passengers for Fort Tejon. His fares had to walk up the grade to the Pass. There they saw only a great drop on the far side. While they watched in awe, Banning cracked the whip and took off downward. In the words of one witness: "Sometimes the horses were ahead of the stage and sometimes the stage was ahead of the horses." Eventually the Butterfi eld Overland Mail as well as local stages and freight wagons used the route. The road, opened for traffi c in January, 1855, was improved slightly in DON YGNACIO DEL VALLE 1858. It was still fearsome and in 1861 the State Legislature granted Andres Pico a franchise to improve the road and to collect tolls. But storms in 1862 washed out the road and Pico's franchise was given to General Edward F. Beal e for a turnpike road from Mission San Fernando to the Arroyo de Santa Gold Sets Course of History Clara. It was Beale's men who deepened the cut over the San Fernando pass to The great California Gold Rush in 1849 created unlimited money almost its present dimensions, using only picks and shovels . For 22 years this and business in the mining camps and towns of the north. Pioneer merchants was a toll road until Beale's franchise expired and Los Angeles County took it in the sleepy Pueblo de Los Angeles - the area that is today Olvera Street over. It was the main outlet for Los Angeles northward as late as the early and the Civic Center - were fully aware of the possibilities developing. 1900's and was used even by automobiles. The first car over the pass was a Accustomed to surmounting handicaps, these rugged frontiersmen intended 1902 Autocar, which had to be backed up the grade because of its gravity flow to get their full share of whatever development might take place and the of gasoline to the carburetor. founding of Fort Tejon in 1854 brought pressure for a better road from Los The San Fernando Pass became known as the Newhall Grade until it was Angeles. Work began on a toll road over San Fernando - or Fremont Pass - replaced by a tunnel in 1910. The tunnel in turn was made obsolete by a new but Phineas Banning, 24-year-old merchant and stage line operator, couldn't road built in 1939. 6 7 Lyon Station Built at Eternal Valley Site As traffic increas d between Los Angeles and the North and the necessity arose for staging connections at convenient locations, Henry C. Wiley and Jose Ygnacio del Valle established the first depot which became Lyon Station when acquired by the Lyon brothers in 1855. Lyon Station consisted of a well constructed frame building, which housed a store, post office, depot and tavern. There was also a large stable and a cottage half-hidden in the moun­ tain oak. J. H. Whitney, for whom Whitney Canyon was named, buried his three THE FI RST HOUSE children in th cemetery one by one as they fell victims of the dread diph­ theria plague. Willie, the first child of this early day homesteader and his wife, died just before his sixth birthday in 1881. Then followed the tragic deaths of AT their daughters, Nettie at the age of eight, in 1884 and Mabel 10, in 1888. Visitors can still read the tender eulogy on the children's gravestones: LYON STATION "Beneath this stone in soft repose, I laid a Mother's dearest pride ..