The northern part of Los Angeles County, including the Antelope Valley, has a rich and interesting history and historic resources. One of the Historic Resources listed by the State of California in the Antelope Valley is the Utopian community of Llano Del Rio. According to the California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation, this was the site of the most important non-religious Utopian experiment in western American history. Its founder, Job Harriman, was Eugene Debs’ running mate in the presidential election of 1900. In subsequent years, Harriman became an influential socialist leader and in 1911 was almost elected mayor of Los Angeles. At its height in 1916, the colony contained a thousand members and was a flourishing communitarian experiment dedicated to the principal of cooperation rather than competition. For more details, visit the California Office of Historic Preservation website.
The Antelope Valley also has a history of famous residents of the film and music industry, including John Wayne, Frank Zappa and Judy Garland. While living in Lancaster between 1926 and 1933, Frances Ethel Gumm, later known as Judy Garland, lived with her family in three houses, one near the high school and two on Cedar Avenue. Judy’s father, Frank Gumm, bought the 500-seat Lancaster Theater and renamed it the Valley Theater where Frances and her sisters, known then as the Gumm Sisters, performed their vaudeville act on a regular basis with their mother as agent and manager. One of Lancaster’s most famous residents, her childhood footprints are imprinted in a cement sidewalk slab now located in the backyard of the city’s historic Western Hotel. For more information, visit the LA County Library Community History – Antelope Valley website. One of the Cedar Avenue houses Judy Garland and her family lived in, was built in 1915 and is still standing. Some of the original features remain from when Garland lived there. The home is close to downtown Lancaster. (Source: Real Simple, “Tour Judy Garland Childhood Home”).
Nearby in the Santa Clarita Valley, historic resources include Pico Canyon Oil Field Well No. 4, the site of the first commercially-successful oil strike in California and the longest operating in the world at 114 years. (Source: LA County Department of Regional Planning Preservation Resources website)
The nearby boomtown of Mentryville was fostered by the oil discovery and is now a ghost town and a California State Historical Landmark. The approximately 800-acre site is owned and managed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and still contains historic buildings with docent-led tours. The ghost town has been used for filming locations including the motion picture “The Color Purple,” and in television series, including “The X-Files,” “The A-Team,” and “Murder She Wrote.” For more detailed information, visit the Mentryville California Wikipedia website.
The Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park, which is a spectacular 932-acre County Park in Agua Dulce with jagged rocks jutting out of the ground along the San Andreas Fault, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 because of its significance as a prehistoric site for the Shoshonean, Allikilik, and Tatavium Native American tribes. For more information visit the National Register of Historic Places website.
Preserving our history gives us a link to the past and enriches our culture. In 2015, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recognized that rich history and adopted the Historic Preservation Ordinance. The ordinance applies to all of the unincorporated communities, including in Antelope Valley. Among the purposes for this ordinance is to enhance and preserve the County’s distinctive historic, architectural, and landscape characteristics that are part of the County’s cultural, social, economic, political and architectural history. For more information on Los Angeles County Historic Preservation Ordinance, please visit the LA County Historic Preservation Ordinance website.
