This Must Be Santa Clarita

Not that it’s a contest, but Santa Clarita did it first.

It was Hollywood earlier Hollywood. It had its ain golden rush years earlier riches were recovered astatine Sutter’s Mill. And men were pulling lipid from nan crushed location 2 decades earlier Texas dug its first well.

Get to cognize Los Angeles done nan places that bring it to life. From restaurants to shops to outdoor spaces, here’s what to observe now.

Yet nan rugged Santa Clarita Valley and nan 4 communities it comprises — Newhall, Valencia, Canyon County and Saugus — are still thing of a enigma to galore who don’t unrecorded there. Or worse, nan area remains misunderstood acknowledgment to “The Santa Clarita Diet” and different popular civilization portrayals.

The truth is acold much interesting, if evasive. For decades, nan Newhall Pass formed a earthy obstruction separating nan vale from nan Los Angeles Basin, allowing Santa Clarita to cultivate its ain unsocial culture, 1 that’s woven into nan cloth of Southern California.

“This was genuinely nan Old Wild West retired here,” said Alan Pollack, a expert of soul medicine who moved to nan vale successful 1991 and quickly became steeped successful its history. “There were gunfights, location were stagecoaches, each that benignant of stuff.”

Santa Clarita was wherever galore of nan early westerns were shot, pinch existent cowboys driving herds of cattle down nan town’s dusty main street. Since then, nan vale has go location to much than a twelve movie ranches, from nan 22-acre Melody Ranch to nan 400-acre Rancho Maria and Sable Ranch, arsenic good arsenic dozens of soundstages, earning nan metropolis nan title “Hollywood North.”

“You tin get immoderate benignant of look successful Santa Clarita,” says Carol Rock, trading head for nan Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. “Just thrust around. You’re looking astatine nan Amazon. You’re looking astatine nan wood successful different kinds of trees. And past you’ve sewage thenar trees.” Pay attraction and you’ll announcement that nan hills and canyons person provided nan backdrop for everything from “The Lone Ranger” and “Gunsmoke” to “Oppenheimer,” “Star Trek” and “The Office.”

The metropolis is besides location to nan sprawling Magic Mountain taxable park, whose 19 roller coasters are nan astir successful a azygous amusement parkland successful nan world. It holds much than 80 miles of immoderate of Southern California’s champion nationalist hiking trails, fed by a 30-mile strategy of biking paths, walkways and bridges. (On 1 of those trails, you tin position nan tract of nan St. Francis Dam built by William Mulholland, whose aqueduct made Southern California’s suburban sprawl possible. The dam’s 1928 illness that killed hundreds is still remembered arsenic 1 of nan worst U.S. civilian engineering disasters of nan 20th century.)

And past there’s CalArts, a backstage ocular and performing schoolhouse whose graduates — including filmmaker Tim Burton, Pixar’s John Lasseter and jazz musician Ravi Coltrane — person had an outsized power connected modern animation and popular music.

Through it all, Old Town Newhall, nan halfway of what erstwhile was a railroad and ranching hub, remains nan beating bosom and psyche of nan area. You’ll find echos of nan past connected Main Street — nan historical territory is still lined pinch hitching posts, though they’re chiefly ornamental nowadays, and embedded pinch bronze stars and terrazzo tiles honoring nan legends of occidental film, tv and radio. And each complete nan community, nan bequest of William S. Hart, Newhall’s original silent surface cowboy, lives connected successful nan streets, schools, museums and parks that carnivore his name.

To spot wherever it each began, walk a time successful Santa Clarita, a spot wherever you tin observe cowboy history and sip a blase Chardonnay astatine a vino barroom each connected an day stroll.