HOLDING ON TO THE PAST : DEVELOPERS HOPE TO PRESERVE SITE OF SPANISH VILLAGE.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Daily News Staff Writer

On a mesa with a breathtaking view of the Santa Clara River Valley sits one of the town's least known pieces of history - the remains of the Spanish mission outpost knows as the Asistencia.

Crumbling pieces of adobe, tiles and ceramic amid the brush are all that remain of the Mission San Fernando's adobe outpost called Rancho San Francisco, a Catholic village founded in 1804 and built by local Tatavium Indians.

More than a century after it was abandoned to eventual destruction by nature and man, the Asistencia is the subject of research by archeologists called upon by the Newhall Land and Farming Co. to assess the site in hopes of preserving what remains.

The mission outpost is within the boundaries of the proposed Newhall Ranch - a planned community of some 25,000 homes touted as the ``new Valencia.'' Its exact location is rarely publicized because the remains have been vandalized.

``It's our intention that the site will be preserved in perpetuity,'' Newhall Land spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said Tuesday. ``Right now, we're hesitant to draw attention to it while we're trying to figure out the best way to protect and preserve it.''

Over the years, hikers and researchers have found artifacts at the mission site, particularly old ceramics dishes used at the settlement.

The mission site is being studied for inclusion in the environmental impact report now being compiled for the Newhall Ranch project. Findings will be released once public hearings begin on the project.

What Newhall Land hopes is to use the site for educational programs, Lauffer said.

History buff Paul Higgins said little is left of the outpost.

``If you scratch around under the weeds you can find broken tiles, ceramics, some adobe,'' Higgins said. ``You would never know there was indeed anything there.''

Higgins said he learned from the late Jerry Reynolds, a noted local historian, that the site was bulldozed in the late 1930s after it attracted vandals. Earlier vandals had broken up the floor in search for buried treasures.

In 1933, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History staff excavated the site but found little, Higgins added.

The site is a state historical landmark and believed occupied until at least 1861. Francisco Lopez, credited with California's first gold discovery in Placerita Canyon, lived at the mission in 1842.

In Ruth Newhall's ``A California Legend: The Newhall Land and Farming Company,'' the author details the efforts by Spanish explorers to mark the territory that is now the Santa Clarita Valley.

While a Spanish mission was built in San Fernando, the nearly impassable mountains separating the two valleys dictated the need for a local outpost.

On a shelf of a hill overlooking the confluence of the Castaic Creek and the Santa Clara River, Tatavium drafted by missionaries constructed the Asistencia.

The Asistencia was named ``Rancho San Francisco'' by the Franciscan priests. The adobe sat at the center of what would be the headquarters of a Spanish rancho, which stretched from Saugus to Piru in Ventura County, and later the holdings of Newhall Land.

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Photo: (color--different caption in AV edition) A paintingby Jerry Reynolds depicts the Mission San Fernando outpost in 1804. Today, little remains of the buildings.