A warm and Western howdy, Santa Clarita saddlepals. Time to shake loose the bed bugs and wiggle into some jeans (non-designer). Shirt, boots (just two) and a fetching cowboy hat would be nice, too.  Not one you’d buy at a gas station.  Ahem.  We’ve got some serious mileage ahead on the back trails of Santa Clarita Valley history. This Mighty Signal Saturday morn, we’ll be inspecting gold spikes and silver hammers, a lava fire boring its way from Newhall to the other side of the planet and a passel of crooks, mucky-mucks and colorful characters.  Then, of course, it’s hard to hide from woke. Saugus High has been attacked by the politically correct.  Now come on, some of you late sleepers, Sabbath complainers and recalcitrant coyotes.  Up in the saddle and dear goodness me even if you’re trained that way, don’t hold your reins English with the little pinkies pointing out. It tends to draw pursed lips and unspoken criticism …  WAY, WAY BACK WHEN   EXTRA CREDIT IF YOU BRING IN THE SOLID GOLD RAILROAD SPIKE, NO QUESTIONS ASKED!! — There are those few dates in history that are truly significant. This one is. When financier Charles Crocker used a silver hammer to drive home a solid gold spike at Lang Station in Canyon Country on Sept. 5, 1876, he officially linked Los Angeles and San Francisco via the railroad, thereby changing the face of the valley forever. The railroad opened the valley to the outside world, bringing in people, goods and services. Not only that, the rails helped literally compress time. Journeys that had taken months before now could be completed in a day or less. As I used to kid my SCV History Class back in the day, don’t bother scouring Lang Station today for Crocker’s golden spike. I’m pretty sure they took it out.  NOW YOU SEE NEWHALL, NOW YOU DON’T — The very next day, Sept. 6, 1876, the Newhall Train Station and community of Newhall was founded — where the present Saugus Cafe sits today. That’s right. Newhall started in Saugus. Before there was a Saugus. I know. I know this and it still makes my head spin. Newhall and its first depot then moved a year and change later to its present site.  THE ANTI-INDIAN STATE BUDGET — Another anniversary: California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state on Sept. 8, 1850. Darkly, the No. 1 budget allocation for the state in its first two years of existence was money for the eradication of Indians. California’s first governor resigned mid-term because the federal government refused to send in troops to completely eradicate the red man.  AND WE’RE NOT TALKING THE POLISH KIND — We’ve often talked about how the pioneers used an old-fashioned “Spring Pole” method to pump oil out of the ground. As we used to say around the ranch house way back when, “o mój Boże!!” (“Oh my goodness!!” in Polish) a “Spring Pole” is not a youthful citizen of Poland. It’s basically a large pole on a fulcrum with a bit on the other end, pounding into the ground and operated by brute strength. Know where we got the method? From Chinese railroad laborers who stuck around Newhall to pump for oil after the railroad was built.  SEPTEMBER 7, 1924  THAT STUFF THAT MADE OL’ JED A MILLIONAIRE — Sorry. Ancient “Beverly Hillbillies” opening musical theme song reference. Keep reading. On this date, Union Oil started drilling on a 1,600-acre site south of Saugus. Geologists felt Santa Clarita rested on a veritable lake of oil, and, frankly, they were right. For a century, we rivaled Saudi Arabia and Texas in oil production.  AN OILY MAN FOR ALL SEASONS — While one oil business was starting up, another was ending. Walton Young, who ran Mentryville’s production, community and even their tiny school district, retired. He got his 35-year pin from Standard Oil and took a vacation to Canada.  JUST DON’T DROP YOUR KEYS DOWN THERE — Yet more oil tidbits. Shell Oil was busy drilling what was then the deepest oil well in the world just north of Newhall. The derrick reached down to about 10,000 feet — nearly 2 miles.  SHAKESPEARE NEED NOT WORRYETH — Being smack dab in the middle of the main north-south artery of Highway 6, we saw more than our fair share of accidents. The main road into Newhall back then was via the Newhall road tunnel, underneath the southern end of Sierra Highway today. Signal columnist and future owner, A.B. “Dad” Thatcher, wrote a poem — and a pretty bad one at that — about speeding motorists on the front page of The Mighty Signal. Goes a little something like this:  Young Harold Glendall MacDunnell  Drove his Buick like a shot thru the tunnel;  Made all the rest duck —   A blind curve — a truck —  They put back his brains with a funnel.  SEPTEMBER 7, 1934  THERE’S A POLICE JOKE IN THERE SOMEWHERE — At the Newhall Bakery, they had a special on doughnuts — three for a nickel.  SPEAKING OF VICES — At the new Newhall Liquor Store, they had a special on all domestic beer — $2.25. That’d be for an entire case of 24, not per bottle.  SEPTEMBER 7, 1944  CRIPES! A CUP OF JOE HAS JUMPED A BAZILLION PERCENT!! — Due to a shortage of food during wartime rationing, the historic Saugus Cafe, oldest eatery today still in business in Los Angeles County, had been closed for nearly two years. On this date, they reopened under the management of Eugene B. Sikes. Good coffee was just a nickel a cup at the 24-hour eatery. The ads boasted “An Old Friend Returns Today.” Amen to that. They still are. Of course, they haven’t been open 24 hours in eons, which is a sin. AND — coffee’s more than a nickel …  SEPTEMBER 7, 1954  THE MAD GODS OF SUMMER RETURN — We were going through a most pleasant end of August. Then, drat and with a vengeance, a huge heat wave rolled over from the desert, popping the mercury up to 108. Hope history doesn’t repeat …  SEPTEMBER 7, 1964  FIFTEEN MEN ON A DEAD MAN’S CHEST, YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM!! — The Mighty Signal’s Lost Spanish Treasure Chest contest drew to a close. The Lemoyne McElvany family of Saugus found the cask holding a rare Spanish doubloon buried in the riverbed near the Saugus Speedway. When they returned the chest to The Signal, the family was presented a check for $500. That was a lot of hay in 1964. You could get an acre of frontage land in Sand Canyon back then for just $1,500. The Signal contest pretty much turned the SCV on its ear. Every issue, we’d run clues as to the whereabouts of Scott Newhall’s pirate cache. People were digging up everything from the Ford dealership asphalt lot to their neighbors’ yards.  SEPTEMBER 7, 1974  NICE LAKE. JUST DON’T BLANKETY-BLANK GO IN IT — Pyramid Lake had just held its grand opening for boaters, skiers and swimmers, but good luck trying to get in. The lake was usually posted closed via signs 30 miles to the south and north by 10 a.m. on the weekends.  I HOPE THE MASCOT NAME IS STILL THE INDIANS — Believe it or not, the first Saugus High School opened up in 1954 (in Saugus, Massachusetts). Actually, it was a middle school. On this date, the William S. Hart Union High School District board of trustees came up with a name for the new high school off Bouquet Canyon. Yup. Saugus High. Ready for some irony? Just like here in Santa Clarita, since 2020, a small brigade of loud albeit woke souls have been trying to change our sister city’s mascot name. It’s the Sachem, meaning “wise soul or leader.” It’s from the Algonquin and Iroquois but not Elizabeth Warren pretend nations back east …  AND YET MORE PIE-THROWING FROM THE SCV’S WACKIEST GOVERNMENT AGENCY — For more than a decade, the hijinks continued at the little government agency with the huge name: The Northwestern Los Angeles County Resource Conservation District. On this date, board member Joy Picus slapped board President Alwyn Luse across the face after he called her a “loud-mouthed pig.” One board member suggested that the agency disband, noting “We ought to get off the taxpayers’ backs.” After embezzlement, graft and corruption, it would take more than a decade for the corrupt bureau to finally die. The way their charter was set up, they had virtually no oversight and robbed the taxpayers blind.  AND YET, THEY NEVER INVENTED THE UN-OIL FILTER — We don’t bat an eye today, but 50 years ago, all the local gas stations were retooling for a new type of environmentally friendly fuel: unleaded.  MOON OVER THE MOUNTAIN? — A pair of teenagers thought they had found the perfect make-out spot, driving out to a deserted road. While they looked all around, they failed to look UP. According to Signal gossip columnist Ruth Newhall, the couple was stark raving naked and liking one another very, very much in their convertible, when they heard shrieks. Seems they had parked under one of Magic Mountain’s roller coasters and the riders got an extra thrill. The kids? They got arrested for indecent exposure. On the bright side, they were engaged.  SEPTEMBER 7, 1984  EEEESH. THERE’S FIRES. THEN, THERE’S FIRES … — Forty years back, a softball-sized hole bored through one of the furnaces at Thatcher Glass and 500 pounds of molten glass started melting its way toward the Indian Ocean on the other side of the globe. Firefighters took turns braving inside temperatures of more than 130 degrees, trying to douse the growing lava. The liquid glass reached temperatures of over 2,700 degrees. Phew! That’ll bore through your tennis shoes …  AN IMPORTANT WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP: HOW TO START A CAMPFIRE WITH ICED TEA — Here’s another oddball call that local firefighters answered. With summer’s heat fuming, a Canyon Country — yes, Canyon Country — woman had set out a large glass jar in her back yard to make sun tea. A neighbor ran over, frantically yelling. Seems the tea caught the redwood picnic table on fire. Yup. The sunrays magnified through the glass and started a backyard blaze.  HONEST MIKE — Dan McBride and James E. Smith attended a fancy $250-per-person yacht cruise to help raise money for Mike Antonovich’s re-election to county supervisor. McBride was president of the parent company of Space Ordnance Systems, a local firm. Smith was a top SOS officer. The week after the cruise, both were slapped with 87 misdemeanor counts of mishandling toxic wastes. At the district attorney’s press conference announcing the charges was, you guessed it, Mike Antonovich. He graciously returned the contributions.  • • •   Jiminy Christmas if you people aren’t good company. Thanks so much for sharing the SCV’s history trail with me. Happy start of September and hope to be seeing all y’all next week back here at The Mighty Signal hitching post with another exciting Time Ranger adventure. Until then? I know who I’ll be riding with. “¡Vayan con Dios, amigos!”   If you love local history and reading about ghosts, myths and monsters, visit Boston’s bookstore at johnbostonbooks.com. Pick up JB’s two-volume set of “MONSTERS” on local horror and macabre …  The post The Time Ranger | Saugus High Changing Its Mascot Name?  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.