A WILD PLACE VALLEY ONCE HOME TO LOTS OF HORSES, OPEN SPACES.

Byline: Sharon Cotal Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - When a new year approaches, most people look to the future, making plans and speculating on what their lives will be like.

But Dutch Wurm, 76, took some time out recently to reminisce about the old days in Santa Clarita, and nearby Los Angeles.

``The town was very western, with a lot of open spaces. A lot of the men in town were cowboys, and we wore western shirts and boots and hats,'' he said. ``It used to be all cowboys and horses up here, so whenever the studios wanted a big scene with horses all around, they came here.''

The Newhall resident has long been familiar with the area, where his family had a cabin in the mountains and where he now calls home.

Up until about 20 years ago, Santa Clarita was a farming area, Newhall a western town, Wurm said.

``They even had camels out here, stockpiled for the movies, and it was kind of funny to drive by and see those animals from the highway,'' he said.

Many movies were filmed in the area - and still are - but in the 1930s and '40s Santa Clarita was also a place for big-name stars to come to get a little peace and quiet away from the Hollywood scene.

When Mae West wanted to get away from it all, Wurm said she visited a cabin near Quigley Canyon Road in Placerita that was owned by his family.

Apparently, West occasionally did not want anyone to come up and see her sometime.

``She came up here to be alone - it was her hideaway,'' Wurm said. ``The newspapers would be on her trail, but they couldn't find her because she was out at our place.''

The cabin, along with several others and Gene Autry's studio, burned down about 23 years ago, he said.

``When those cabins went down, that destroyed a lot of history,'' Wurm said.

During Wurm's teen-age years, he would go out dancing - mainly the jitterbug - then climb into a hot rod and drive over to Bob's Drive In in Glendale for a double-decker hamburger coated with a special sauce made by the owner's grandmother, he said.

Wurm played football for Franklin High School in the Los Angeles Coliseum, was on the platform diving team with Sammy Lee, who later went on to the Olympics, and visited a local swimming hole at White Rock near Acton.

``We used to go around wearing our senior sweaters with our emblems on them - boy, those were the days,'' he said.

But times have changed - one difference that Wurm has noticed is that families don't spend as much time together as they used to.

``People used to have a home life, but now people are always going here and there,'' he said. ``Things are going pretty fast.''

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Dutch Wurm, 77, seen here at the Senior Center where he likes to shoot pool with his friends, has seen lots of changes in the Santa Clarita Valley.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer