DEPOT OF DAYS GONE BY SAUGUS STATION HOUSES HISTORY.

Byline: Amy Raisin Staff Writer

NEWHALL - On the eve of a new century, the old Saugus Train Station, an 1880s redwood structure that today serves as a museum, proudly boasts local artifacts that tell the tale of the area, stubbornly refusing to let the past fade away.

Inside the building - which was cut in half and hauled to its current San Fernando Road location in 1980 - today's world of information superhighways and cellular phones gives way to century-old mining equipment and rusted riding spurs and halters.

``This place brings back memories of (local residents') childhoods, of their grandparents and how isolated the area used to be because of the mountains,'' said Gerry Sokolowicz, a volunteer at the museum. ``It's a window to this valley's past.''

Prominent among the wooden automobile wheels and branding irons are photos and news clips detailing the collapse of the St. Francis Dam in 1928, a tragedy that took more than 300 lives.

Kelly Maynard, 79, lived on a ranch in Soledad Canyon when the dam broke and remembers, even though he wasn't yet 10, what a catastrophe the day was.

``It was a terribly drastic event that I've always remembered,'' said Maynard, a sound engineer who often travels from his Pasadena home to visit the museum. ``It's a really nice gathering of memorabilia and it's important to preserve it.''

Staffed by volunteers, the Saugus Train Station also pays tribute to the Hollywood influence through behind-the-scenes set photography - Westerns like ``Gunsmoke,'' ``Hopalong Cassidy'' and ``The Lone Ranger'' were filmed in the area.

Photos of William S. Hart, a silent-movie cowboy who moved to the area and for which the historic regional park is named, decorate the walls and reveal the simpler - if not more hardscrabble - way of life.

Maynard said he has faith that at least some of the area's young people, children and teens who grew up learning the Internet as generations before learned their multiplication tables, have an interest in the Native American artifacts and Old West memorabilia housed in the station.

``I used to ride the train, and I remember paying a couple of cents for a (soda) pop,'' Maynard said. ``I think that some of them are interested in what happened here in the past.''

Though a far cry from MTV, the 1888 Estay Organ displayed in a corner has a lonely fascination to it, the original fabric once stretched over its foot pedals now reduced to a few loose shreds.

``I lived here as a kid, and I'm still interested in this real nice collection,'' Maynard said.

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Photo:

(color in SAC edition only) The old Saugus Train Station has found a new life as a museum. Inside the building are artifacts that tell the tale of the area.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer