RAILROAD LINE ONE CONSTANT IN BURGEONING VALLEY; CHANGE SETS THEME IN ERA.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

One of the few vestiges of valley history that survives from the dawn of the 20th century is the railroad line that brought passengers and freight to a 48,600-acre Spanish land grant-turned-cattle ranch.

Henry Mayo Newhall had purchased the land, dubbed Rancho San Francisco by Franciscan missionaries, for farming and grazing land. His decision to deed a right of way to Southern Pacific railroad - and the train service that began in 1876 on that Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line - laid the groundwork for decades of development that transformed rolling hills and dirt roads into housing tracts and highways.

``That's one of the few things that hasn't changed - the rails were laid and have been there ever since,'' said Phil Scorza, a member of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.

While the railroad drew residents and commerce to the region, the 1900s also were shaped by events that came long before - by the Tataviam Indians who lived on this land for more than 1,000 years, by the Spanish explorers and padres who set up military encampments and missions, by the 1842 discovery of gold in Placerita Canyon, and by the oil drilling in Pico Canyon.

These days, farmland has been paved over to build neighborhoods and shopping centers, the Tataviam Indians have died out, the mission outpost is gone and the oil boom and gold rush have long since subsided. But the rail line remains, and now that route along San Fernando Road and Soledad Canyon Road carries business people commuting to work on Metrolink trains.

Another influence on the fledgling town's evolution came in 1910 when the state Department of Transportation undertook construction of The Ridge Route, the first concrete highway in Los Angeles County.

At 88, Gladys Laney has been a lifelong Newhall resident whose most vivid childhood memories of the area include attending Newhall Elementary School and wondering when her father - stationed at an Army base in Massachusetts - would come home.

``Mostly what stands out in my mind is World War I. I missed him greatly,'' said Laney, who volunteers at the Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center. ``We were very patriotic at school. We marched around and knitted washcloths,'' she recalled.

``I remember asking my mother what (the newspapers) were going to use for headlines when (the war) was over.'' Times were hard on Laney's mother, Armantha Thibaudeau, struggling to make ends meet in her husband's absence.

``My mother did everything. She took in boarders . . . and she was very active in the Red Cross. They rolled bandages,'' Laney said.

Back then, most of the valley was dirt roads with no sidewalks. The locals made their living off the land, either laboring in the oil wells of Pico Canyon or raising hay and other crops without the benefit of irrigation.

``There was a good deal of dry farming,'' she said. ``You didn't water at all. You depended on the rain.''

The children attended a three-room school near present-day Newhall Avenue and Lyons Avenue, a forerunner of the current Newhall Elementary School. Public education began in the first grade and ended in the eighth grade, unless students wanted to travel to San Fernando for high school, Laney remembered.

The lifestyle was simpler back then - children entertained themselves with games of Run Sheep Run, a variation of hide and seek, and adults got together to play cards. Everybody in town was invited to dances held in a local hall, and families took outings to the countryside. ``Bouquet Canyon was a favorite place for picnics, because there was a little stream there,'' Laney said.

She remembered once meeting a famous silent movie cowboy. ``Tom Mix lived across the street for a while. He bargained (to buy) a horse on our front porch,'' Laney said.

Farming and ranching in the Santa Clarita Valley have been a family business for generations for Donna Chesebrough and her ancestors.

``We've seen a lot of change,'' she said, noting that her relatives, the Cordovas, homesteaded in Castaic and her in-laws, the Chesebroughs, are descendants of Henry Mayo Newhall.

The Cordovas ``used to farm close to 1,000 acres here in the Santa Clarita Valley,'' said Chesebrough, 47. ``They were in Castaic Canyon before the building of the dam.''