In California, Santa Clarita has a history that goes back centuries, one which is sure to interest and entertain any Santa Clarita resident. 

The Beginnings

The first people who historians think settled in Santa Clarita were the Tataviam Native Americans, who settled in Santa Clarita at bout 450 AD. Not much is known about the Tataviam people, but they spoke Shoshone. They are, according to Dr. John Johnson, actually the least known group of Native Americans in the whole of California, living in such peace and harmony with nature that when they disappeared, they barely left a trace. They got absorbed into the first Spanish missions and now we don’t even know what they called themselves. 

The Name of the City

Santa Clarita got its name from the Spanish Portola expedition throughout California. The Spanish explorers came into Santa Clarita on horseback and named the river that they saw after Saint Clare. Eventually, the river was called “little” Saint Clare, or Santa Clarita. 

Cowboy Days

Santa Clarita has a rich history of cowboys and Native Americans; in fact, the city of Santa Clarita has a Cowboy Festival to celebrate the olden days, attracting more than 10,000 visitors every year. The citizens of early Santa Clarita were gun-slinging, poker-playing explorers of the final frontier; nowadays the average Santa Claritan is more likely to be inside playing online roulette than outside playing poker. It’s nice for the city to use the festival to keep in touch with its cowboy days. 

Gold Rush

In 1842, the first gold was discovered in Santa Clarita, which was also the first discovery of gold in the whole state of California! A man named Jose Francisco de Gracia Lopez was in Placerita Canyon by what’s known as the Oak of the Golden Dream. He pulled some wild onions from the ground and found gold clinging to its roots! 

Oil Rush

Then, in 1876, a French immigrant named Charles Alexander Mentry built the first successful oil well in the whole of the West. It was called “Pico number 4” and began generating 30 barrels a day. Today it is the oldest still-existing oil refinery in the world. 

The Dam Disaster

Unfortunately, the Wild West’s oil and gold’s birthplace was cursed by a tragedy in 1928. The Santa Clarita Valley’s St. Francis Dam completely collapsed. The valley flooded, including Saugus, and roughly 450 people were killed. The St. Francis Dam Disaster is considered to be the second-worst disaster in Californian history. 

A Cinematic Place

Anybody who has been to Santa Clarita would tell you it would be an excellent place for a movie, and prominent directors thought that too at the start of the 1900s. Many famous actors called Santa Clarita their home, including John Wayne, William S. Hart, Harry Carey, and Tom Mix. Gene Auntry also spent time on a ranch he owned nearby. You’d recognize it, as today his ranch is one of the most filmed ranches in Western movie history! 

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