The rustic valley that started it all

MOVIE RANCHES, TRAILS AND A HISTORIC MAIN STREET? SANTA CLARITA’S GOT IT.

- BY KEVIN BAXTER

THRILLS at Six Flags Magic Mountain, clockwise from left; the legendary Melody Ranch; breakfast at Egg Plantation on Main Street; the stage at Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center.

NOT THAT IT'S a contest, but Santa Clarita did it first. It was Hollywood before Hollywood. It had its own gold rush years before riches were found at Sutter's Mill. And men were pulling oil from the ground there two decades before Texas dug its first well. Yet the rugged Santa Clarita Valley and the four communities it comprises — Newhall, Valencia, Canyon County and Saugus — are still something of a mystery to many who don't live there. Or worse, the area remains misunderstood thanks to “The Santa Clarita Diet” and other pop culture portrayals. The truth is far more interesting, if evasive. For decades, the Newhall Pass formed a natural barrier separating the valley from the Los Angeles Basin, allowing Santa Clarita to cultivate its own unique culture, one that's woven into the fabric of Southern California.

“This was truly the Old Wild West out here,” said Alan Pollack, a doctor of internal medicine who moved to the valley in 1991 and quickly became steeped in its history. “There were gunfights, there were stagecoaches, all that sort of stuff.”

Santa Clarita was where many of the early westerns were shot, with real cowboys driving herds of cattle down the town's dusty main street. Since then, the valley has become home to more than a dozen movie ranches, from the 22-acre Melody Ranch to the 400-acre Rancho Maria and Sable Ranch, as well as dozens of sound stages, earning the city the title “Hollywood North.”