BRINGING BACK THE BOOM TOWN\Group restores Mentryville for tours.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

On the grounds of a historic oil town in Pico Canyon, another boom is occurring. But instead of oil, it's tourism.

A group of volunteers plans to transform Mentryville, home of the state's first commercial oil well, into a tourist attraction that would draw thousands of visitors to the Santa Clarita Valley each year.

Friends of Mentryville want to restore the town, which once boasted 100 families, a bakery, one-room schoolhouse and blacksmith shop.

The fledgling group envisions a place where visitors can leave behind the 20th century to enjoy the simple pleasures of the past: horseshoe contests, square dancing and walks through open country.

"You step in here and you step back in time," said Jim McCarthy, a volunteer and park project coordinator for Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation.

Members see Mentryville as the cornerstone of Santa Clarita's tourist spots that would include Six Flags California, the Western Walk of Fame and the Cowboy Poetry Festival.

"We want this to be a destination where (tourists) can come for a whole weekend filled with activities," McCarthy said.

The park is scheduled to open May 11 with docent-led tours, a refurbished schoolhouse and picnic grounds. Located about three miles west of the Golden State Freeway, Mentryville is part of a 3,100-acre parcel Chevron Corp. donated last year to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The conservancy and city of Santa Clarita want to build a visitors center, offices and hiking trails on the 800-acre site. Friends of Mentryville will raise funds for the park and organize volunteer activities.

"The conservancy doesn't have the means to reach into the community," said Paul Higgins, president of Friends of Mentryville. "We're a public organization meant to reach into the community and make these things happen."

And although volunteers will restore many of the site's eight structures, they will not work on a 109-year-old house that was severely damaged by the Northridge Earthquake.

The Jan. 17, 1994, quake knocked the two-story redwood-frame house from its foundation. The house, now on jacks, needs a new roof, electrical wiring and plumbing.

The conservancy is seeking professional help to restore the house, built in 1887 by Charles Mentry, the Standard Oil Co. superintendent who founded the site in 1865.

In the past, Mentryville produced oil and shipped it in barrels to the Pioneer Oil Refinery in Newhall. The refinery is believed to be one of only two such structures remaining in the world.

Preserving the valley's oil history is a vital link to understanding the valley's future, said Laurene Weste, McCarthy's wife and a city parks commissioner who pushed to preserve the oil town.

"There are not only state treasures but national treasures," she said. "This is what shaped and strengthened our local economy. Without it, we wouldn't be here."

Established in 1865, the tiny, one-street town was home to migrant oil workers and their families who lived in redwood-and-corrugated tin shanties. They would work in Mentryville for a year or two before moving on to other oil towns like Bakersfield.

"They took their homes with them," Higgins said. "They put the nails in coffee tins and loaded their homes on flatbed wagons. That's why nothing remains. They took everything with them."

Most workers were single men, but some had wives and enough children to warrant a one-room schoolhouse complete with outhouses and a potbelly stove. The school served mostly children in primary grades. High school was 15 miles away by horseback in the San Fernando Valley.

After 47 years, the school closed in 1932. Now, the building stands empty except for a single gas lamp and worn chalkboards.

The volunteers want to bring the 1885 red-and-white schoolhouse back to life for contemporary scholars interested in how their counterparts lived a century ago.

The group also plans to restore Johnson Park, a grassy picnic area named after Warren Johnson, a former Chevron Corp. district manager. The park features not only barbecue pits and picnic tables but craps tables and even a wet bar under a shady oak tree.

During the town's heyday, oil workers would spend their off-hours drinking, playing cards and shooting craps, Higgins said.

Just below the gambling area, lies a concrete pad where men and women would dance to live music and cooks would grill rounds of sizzling beef and pork.

"This was their outlet for recreation," Higgins said.

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PHOTO

Photo (1--color) Jim McCarthy and his wife, Laurene Weste, are working with the Friends of Mentryville to rebuild the 1800's town and open it to tourists. (2) Jim McCarthy pitches a horseshoe. Parks Commissioner Laurene Weste pushed for restoring Mentryville. John Lazar/Special to the Daily News