Sylmar and San Fernando - 11/24/2013

Today's adventures took us through Sylmar and San Fernando, with an unexpected final stop in Newhall. First stop was The Cascades (CHL #653). It's appropriate that this month we observe the 100th anniversary of the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

William Mulholland was the LADWP's chief engineer at the turn of the century, and it was his job to bring enough water to Los Angeles to quench the thirst of this burgeoning burg. Much to the chagrin of the residents of the Owens Valley, Mulholland chose to tap into the Eastern Sierras to bring water 233 miles southwest.
photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

The Cascades here served as the site of the "grand opening" ceremony of the Owens River to the people of the San Fernando Valley and the Los Angeles basin. On November 5, 1913, Mulholland and his hydrological engineers opened the floodgates. Since that time, the city determined that a second aqueduct would be needed, and the larger spillway you now see on the hillside (which is far more prominent than the original) is the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, completed in 1970. Mulholland died in 1935, and therefore never got to see the completion of the second aqueduct. He did, however, make additional plans for securing water for the city of Los Angeles: the San Francisquito Canyon Reservoir. To accomplish this, Mulholland commissioned the building of the St. Francis Dam (just a few miles north of our very own Santa Clarita Valley). I don't want to give away too many dam details, because we have a separate dam trip we will be making in a few weeks. It was a dam disaster, and in fact it was the worst civil engineering disaster in U.S. history.

Our second stop of the day was the San Fernando Cemetery (CHL #753). It is the final resting place for a number of pioneers who settled in the San Fernando Valley in the 1800s. According to the cemetery roster, maintained by the San Fernando Valley Historical Society, burials began here in the late 1880s or early 1890s, there are 10 "John Does" buried there, we have a Civil War veteran from Illinois (Willard D. Paine), and the last burial was in 1939.

The cemetery was closed (it's only open the third Saturday of every month), so it's on to our next stop: Griffith Ranch (CHL #716).

 D.W. Griffith was the producer and director of the groundbreaking (and controversial) Birth of a Nation in 1915. This ranch was the inspiration for the film. You can watch the film in its entirety on YouTube (it's in the public domain) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEznh2JZvrI

Our next stop was the San Fernando Mission complex. Before we arrived at the Mission itself, we stopped at the Brand Park (Memory Garden) (CHL #150). From the state: "Brand Park, also called Memory Garden, was given to the city for a park November 4, 1920. It is a part of the original land grant of Mission San Fernando de Rey de España, and the colorful and picturesque atmosphere of the early California missions is preserved in Memory Garden."

The grounds were beautiful. In the photo below, you can see the statue of Father Serra with the arches of the mission just across the street in the background.

So we then crossed the street to the mission. Incredibly, this is my FIRST time ever at Mission San Fernando Rey De España (CHL #157)!

Today was Father Junipero Serra's 300th birthday, so it was only fitting that we should visit a mission today. I asked the young woman at the counter, "So, are you doing anything special for Father Serra's 300th birthday today?"

Her response: "No." How sad! Nevertheless, the mission was beautiful.

This Last Supper carving is right above the wine cellar. I thought it was cool. The mission is actually kind of a mish-mash of all sorts of different types of art (painting, sculpture, carving) and so much of it has no signage or interpretation whatsoever.

I never thought of it, but back in the early 1800s, it made more economic sense for the missions to make their own wine, if they could. They certainly did here in San Fernando. Here's the wine cellar.

Peace.

Again, going along with the "mish-mash" theme here at the mission, there was an entire room dedicated to all the different flags that have flown over California. Argentina, really? I had no idea. I looked into it a little further, and Argentina has a pretty weak claim. It's not nearly as strong as Spain, Mexico, Britain, or Russia.

I'm excited to go to two different places now: the Southwest Museum and Gavilán Peak.

There is one room that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the history of the mission, although it is connected to the Catholic Church: the Madonna Room. It's FULL of Madonnas from all over the world. Here's one from Alaska. "Our Lady of the Artic."

Our Lady of the Macarena. Does she dance?

 Libi is standing by an original adobe wall.

That brick is over 200 years old!

Again, the grounds were beautiful, and were so fortunate to get such beautiful weather today!

Father Serra, according to accounts, was only about 5'1" or 5'2". That was the average height for Mallorcan men (Serra's home island) at the time.

Our visit has ended, but just one quick photo of the mission back in the late 1800s, in quite a state of disrepair.

And now here is the photo I took of that same corridor. The mission has been beautifully restored and maintained.

Our next stop was the Romulo Pico Adobe (CHL #362). The grounds are closed today, so this is as close as we got.

We were supposed to be done for the day, but we decided to hit ONE of the Santa Clarita sites on our way back to the house. It's just inside the gates of Eternal Valley cemetery (which is THE cemetery for Santa Clarita). 

And here it is: Lyons Station (CHL #688). Before these grounds were a memorial park, it was a stagecoach stop, post office, telegraph office, and trading post in the early days of the Santa Clarita Valley. Lyons Station was a regular stop on the Butterfield State line, and was also a rest stop for miners headed for the Kern River gold rush in the early 1850s.

Somewhere along the way, the last name "Lyon" has been transformed into "Lyons." The plaque puts the "s" at the end of Sanford and Cyrus' last names.

However, if you look at Sanford's last name, it is clearly "Sanford Lyon." His brother's tombstone is adjacent to Sanford, and it also says "Lyon." At any rate, there are grave sites that date back to the 1880s here in the "Garden of the Pioneers." We seem to be finding a lot of California history in cemeteries.

Next weekend is Thanksgiving weekend, and who knows where we will end up! All I know is I am thankful to have such a wonderful, adventuresome wife and daughter to share all these adventures with.