On October 30, 1907, noted ornithologist Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey made note of her travels through the Santa Clarita Valley whilst on a trip through California.

A sister of renowned naturalist Clinton Hart Merriam and the wife of Chief Field Naturalist for the Bureau of Biological Survey Vernon Bailey, Bailey passed through Saugus and Soledad Canyon on a research trip through California.

Florence, author of “Birds Through an Opera-Glass” (1890), the first modern field guide to birds, was documenting her observations of California’s diverse landscapes and wildlife during a two-month journey that stretched from Pasadena to Santa Barbara, the San Fernando Valley, and north through Red Bluff and Oregon.

In her field journal entry for October 30–31, Bailey described traveling north by train through the San Fernando Tunnel, reaching Newhall, which she mistakenly identified as “Nordhoff.”

“(Oct. 30th) Left Fernando about 8 a.m. (train late). It went up thru a tunnel to Nordhoff [sic: Newhall] where the English sparrow has come in its way south, and up to Soledad, where, as there is no daylight train thru the pass to the Mojave Desert, Vernon drove as far as he could to determine the zone of the pass, finding it upper Sonoran — sagebrush, atriplex, oaks, etc”

Baily noted the recently marked “El Camino Real” road, designated the previous year in 1906 to connect the California missions via bell markers.

Bailey observed that no daylight train passed through Soledad Canyon to the Mojave Desert at the time, so her husband Vernon drove ahead to study the area’s ecology, identifying it as upper Sonoran zone, characterized by sagebrush, atriplex, and oaks.

“(31st) From Fernando we went to Saugus where we drove up the Francisquito and Soledad Canyon. On the road we met a campus wagon with a square frame covered with tattered cloth — inside a woman & children walking around — & a sewing machine standing.”

To read yesterday’s Today in History, click here.

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