LOCAL SITES GET NEW PUBLICITY; STATE PASSPORT PLAN CELEBRATES ANNIVERSARY.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Staff Writer

California's rich history - its dramatic coastline, hidden veins of gold, American Indians who first settled the land and its vital water system - lays the foundation for a new collectors series of sorts.

To celebrate the state's 150th anniversary, the state Department of Parks and Recreation is issuing a ``Sesquicentennial Passport,'' a guide to 150 parks, museums, forests and visitors centers in California, including the Antelope Valley Indian Museum and the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.

Under the program, travelers have their passports stamped at each location with colorful, elaborate stamps, the goal being to collect them all, coordinator Mary Helmich said.

``It's sort of the educated person's version of `Pokemon,' '' Helmich said. ``You get them all.''

The Indian Museum in Lake Los Angeles is housed in a 70-year-old, chalet-style home built into the picturesque Piute Butte. It was built by H. Arden Edwards, a set painter for the movie industries in the 1920s and 30s, who loved Indian artifacts, museum volunteer Meg Bookout said.

``He was a collector and he wanted to build a museum for his collections,'' Bookout explained. ``He homesteaded the land.''

The museum collection ranges from Alaskan to African to American Indian artifacts, Bookout said. The focus is on the Great Basin region, which encompasses the Mojave Desert.

``We get visitors from all over the world,'' she said. ``We have baskets, bone tools . . . it's very eclectic.''

Picked as the spot in California where the state poppy grows most dependably, the poppy reserve covers 1,752 acres on rolling Antelope Buttes about 12 miles west of Lancaster. It opens each spring for a season whose length depends on how good the wildflower crop is that year.

Passports sell for $5.95 at all the sites and are spiral-bound, 100-page notebooks with space inside for stamps from all the attractions on the program list.

``It's a book; it's really colorful,'' Helmich said. ``Every stamping station has a unique stamping design. You want to go to all those places and collect them. It's a keepsake for our 150th anniversary as a state.''

The project is modeled after one used by the national forests. It appeals to families and retired people who want a good look at California, Helmich said.

``It's good for people who want to go to the places where history is represented or where it actually occurred,'' she said.

Among the sites in the region that have been included in the program are the Placerita Canyon Nature Center in Newhall, the Vista del Lago Visitors Center at Pyramid Lake, McGrath State Beach in Ventura County and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which stretches from Los Angeles to the Malibu coast, crossing the Conejo Valley.

The national recreation area covers 150,000 acres and includes the historic Paramount Ranch, a filming locale. The park was established in 1978 and is best known for its 70-mile Backbone Trail that connects the entire ``backbone of the Santa Monica Mountains,'' spokesman Charles Taylor said.

The park has 33 million visitors a year, mostly people from the Los Angeles area, Taylor said.

``What's interesting about the recreation area is that it goes from the coastal environment - the beaches - and goes up into the mountain chaparral,'' he said. ``You can hike, you can swim, bike, run, ride Rollerblades, ride your horse. You can camp. There are picnic areas.''

The Placerita Nature Center was chosen because it was built around a historic treasure, the Oak of the Golden Dream, said Darrell Wanner, park supervisor for the state-owned park run by Los Angeles County. Ranchero Francisco Lopez discovered gold there in 1842.

The story of the oak is a mix of legend and fact, Wanner said.

``He was tending his cattle, and sat against the tree to take a nap,'' Wanner said. ``Depending on which version you believe, he dreamed he either became wealthy or was swimming a river of gold.

``Then he woke up and remembered his wife has asked him to bring home some wild onions. He walked to a nearby hillside and picked one, and clinging to the roots of the onion were flecks of gold.''

Whether Lopez imagined his newfound wealth in his sleep may be subject to doubt, but that gold was found on the root of an onion in the hills south of Santa Clarita is not contested.

At Vista del Lago, the state Department of Water Resources has exhibits about a far more valuable resource: water. The displays explain how water is pumped from Northern to Southern California and just how much water it takes for a variety of tasks, from taking a shower to growing wheat to making a loaf of bread.

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PHOTO Placerita Nature Center is one of 150 state parks where visitors can get a stamp for the new California Sesquicentennial Passport.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News