CAN THIS LONG-LOST ROAD COME BACK TO LIFE? HISTORIC ROUTE 6 AREA HOPES FOR TOURISTS.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE

Staff Writer

Few who went about their business on the stretch of historic Route 6 between Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley knew the road -- this section now called Sierra Highway -- had just been honored for helping pave the state with prosperity in bygone days.

Many businesses along the meandering cross-country route have withered or died since the '70s when the new freeway dazzled, then snatched away customers. It's hoped the new Route 6 signs will lure curious motorists off the Antelope Valley Freeway -- state Route 14 -- to discover the charms of the slow road.

"You'll see the old towns, Lancaster, Palmdale, where the business section is ... talk to people," said Fred Hann, executive director in California for the U.S. Route 6 Tourist Association. "The F-4 plane, you would never see that from Route 14."

Having ripped through the sky at twice the speed of sound, the jet fighter juts from a plinth at Lancaster Avenue. The Phantom II, legendary for maneuvers in the Vietnam War, would surely unnerve speeding motorists were it docked freeway-close.

Last week the state of California passed a resolution recognizing the highway, hoping to revive and preserve run-down communities along the coast-to-coast route.

The 3,562-mile thoroughfare links Cape Cod, Mass., with Long Beach, making it the longest uninterrupted roadway in the nation. Portions of the road once served as the main street in many towns, which took a hit in the pocketbook when the freeway was built.

The highway spans 14 states. In California, it winds through Bishop, Lone Pine, Mojave, Rosamond, Lancaster, Palmdale and Newhall, then south to Long Beach.

The city of Santa Clarita in January posted a Route 6 sign on Sierra Highway near historic Beale's Cut, a deep gouge in a mountain pass that linked the old cross-country route to the first access between Newhall and Los Angeles. The sign stands mere feet from another warning against illegal dumping. The monument marker has been stripped of its plaques; all that remains are sheared bolts and graffiti.

A round-bellied lizard soaked up sun on the carcass of a mattress dumped at the base of the pass. A sheriff's deputy pointed his radar gun at speeders streetside -- a long cry from the horse-drawn wagons that once ambled up the dusty pass.

Day laborers congregate at Sierra and San Fernando Road, vying for clients seeking hands that lay bricks, wield paintbrushes, clear brush, smooth concrete or cultivate plants. Martin Meraz, 47, does all these things, but Wednesday morning he was just waiting.

"I live in my car," he said.

Meraz parks overnight on the grounds of a nearby church in exchange for doing chores and keeping watch. He sprays the garden hose for his shower and shave, and when he earns $400 a month Meraz sometimes shares a room with up to 15 others in Newhall, paying $150 a month. His former wife and young children live in Lancaster.

"I miss my country," he said of Mexico, which he left nearly 30 years ago. Poking at roadkill, Meraz figured it might be the gopher snake that bit him as he fished through a ravine for discarded bottles and cans, which he recycles for pocket change.

Water is recycled at the bustling carwash at Flying Tiger Drive, where a multitasking sign-waver readied to resume his post on the line.

History could repeat itself at the former Warmuth Honey House on Sierra in Canyon Country, where for decades Margaret Winefred Warmuth sold the liquid gold and operated a gift shop and museum. The renovated stone-clad building is now part of College of the Canyons' roughly 70-acre east-side campus, but might someday display the sweet artifacts.

In the lounge at VFW Post 6110 farther up the road, Army veteran Joseph Domke, 70, recalled bittersweet memories from the Vietnam War, when he was wounded by enemy fire during a hush-hush mission training locals to operate anti-missile systems.

"The guy who shot me didn't know I wasn't there, since the U.S. government was saying nobody's there," he said wryly. Wounded but wary, Domke high-tailed it out of the hospital -- in enemy territory -- pronto. He later earned a master's degree in physics and retired from the upper echelons at the Bendix Corp. after 30 years.

An old-timer in these parts, he remembered how Highway 6 once traced San Fernando Road, picking up Soledad Canyon Road and whipped over to Sierra Highway, continuing up Mint Canyon Road.

"Placerita Canyon used to go over Sierra Highway -- there used to be an overpass there," he said.

Mint Canyon is now a fork in the road, dotted with homes and ranches.

A handful of small 1920s-era cabins a stone's throw from the highly touted Le Chene French Cuisine Restaurant in Agua Dulce house the eatery's cooks. Chef Juan Alonso, who owns the tony French destination restaurant, quips that propinquity landed him there.

"I was driving by, I ran out of gas and here I stopped," he jested. Alonso took over the picturesque spot in 1980 after tenants bailed on the rent. For months he groomed it, laboriously scraping psychedelic hippie-era paint off the cascading rock facade.

Alonso plans a winery nearby to bottle the juice of grapes from his vineyards but in the meantime customers clamor for the cuisine and the ambience.

"Some people drive for 20 years on the highway and they never stop, but when they say 'I was wondering ...', they stop," he said. "In World War II, people used to camp across the street. They stop and say, 'I was here in such a time."'

For years, outdoor enthusiasts made a beeline down the road -- their only direct link -- to the Sierra Nevada. The breathtaking woods have a rival in Le Chene.

"People who were going to the desert to hunt and fish (or) headed to the Sierras stopped and wanted to take pictures," Alonso said.

Many snap holiday photos and propose marriage beside the lush undulating rows of vines at Agua Dulce Vineyards, where plaques bear the names of 7,000 wine club members, mostly couples. Owners Don and Cathy MacAdam live with their four children in an estate nestled among the vines.

Six grape varieties cultivated on 90 acres over the past seven years yield an average annual crop of 300 tons. Angeles Crest is one of the labels -- the winery is encircled by distant mountains in the Angeles Crest National Forest -- but only one label pays homage to the road: Sierra Rojo.

"It plays to who we are, it plays to where we are," said Cathy MacAdam. "That's kind of what we have to offer, our genuineness, the quality of our product."

Dennis Neice is a down-to-earth guy who commutes from his Sand Canyon spread four days a week to an unusual job in Acton. Wednesday he busily unloaded onto pallets imported oak wine barrels that had been retired from a Malibu vineyard.

Customers from around the globe patronize The Barnyard, Neice's 1.5-acre open-air repository of nostalgia. He scoured the nation for years amassing an inventory of vintage covered wagons, buggies, stoves, windmill blades, farm equipment, wheelbarrows, collector's items and oddities -- such as a saguaro cactus street lamp. Many items are destined to become focal points in yards and gardens.

"A lot of those things I felt like I brought back to life; I gave them a second life," he said, musing about their origins. "You walk by most of them and you wish they could talk."

There are no price tags. Ask and Neice responds rapid-fire how much something costs.

A mind-boggling assortment of life-size fiberglass animals, including elk, buffalo and bears -- which Neice fabricates himself -- are a hit near and far.

"We have people come here from other countries," he said. "I have sold stuff to Japan, Malaysia, Germany."

An oversize Bob's Big Boy statue woos freeway passers-by, but rows of wagon wheels -- the biggest seller -- line the fence along Route 6.

"I heard some of the old-timers around here did come out from Los Angeles in wagons," he said, surveying his brood, many from the late 1800s, early 1900s. They're his personal favorite. A cargo container holds a restored 1932 Pontiac convertible.

"Something like that would have been going up and down that highway," he said.

Film production crews love Neice, and the folks from "Deadwood" rented, then bought, an array of items.

He recalled how there used to be many more businesses farther down the road.

"When they put the freeway in, it just killed them, old gas stations and things, gone," he said.

His business, bracketed by Route 6 and the freeway, has thrived.

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CAPTION(S):

5 photos, map

Photo:

(1 -- color in SAC edition only -- ran in SAC and AV editions only) Highway 6, which is Sierra Highway through Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley, has been named a historic route by the state. Santa Clarita placed a sign designating the route near Beale's Cut.

(2 -- ran in SAC edition only) In Lancaster, a F-4 jet fighter used in the Vietnam War juts out over Highway 6. The highway spans 14 states from Massachusetts to California.

(3 -- ran in SAC and AV editions only) Contrary to the sign in Rosamond, not much has changed since Highway 6 was the only route to the High Sierras. The highway in California winds through Bishop, Lone Pine, Mojave, Rosamond, Lancaster and Newhall, then south to Long Beach.

(4 -- ran in SAC and AV editions only) Highway 6 passes by The Barnyard in Acton, an eclectic collection of western items owned by Dennis Neice.

(5 -- ran in Valley edition only) The Sierra Highway, which is Route 6 through Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley, has been given historic recognition by the state of California.

David Crane/Staff Photographer

Map:

Historic route

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist